Scientists at the University of Waterloo have developed a hybrid cooling system for electronic components designed to quickly reduce the temperature of extremely hot spots on a computer. The technology involves dropwise application of expensive coolant to local areas of electronics already immersed in inexpensive coolant.
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The immersion cooling method is already in some demand. Another thing is that with sharp jumps in the computing load, certain areas of the processors heat up faster, while the liquid slowly circulating around – deionized water or oil – is not able to quickly remove excess thermal power. To solve this problem, researchers offered Pointedly direct expensive but quickly reacting coolants in the form of droplets to overheated areas of electronics and it worked.
The experiment used electronics coolant with a boiling point significantly lower than water. In addition, it is denser than water and does not mix with it, so the drop remains in the area of the hot spot. When the boiling point is reached, the liquid evaporates intensively, absorbing heat, and the rising bubbles mix the surrounding water and accelerate the removal of thermal energy.
In tests at a heat flux density of 14.4 W/cm2, the temperature of the center of the artificially created hot zone decreased by approximately 17 °C in 15 s, which turned out to be several times faster than the tested variants of conventional immersion cooling.
To control the boiling process, the researchers used liquid-liquid encapsulation technology: coolant droplets were covered with a thin shell of silicone oil. Small particles of heat-conducting ceramics were also added to it, allowing the boiling rate to be controlled. Thus, two options for implementing the system are possible: free circulation of droplets in a water bath, where they are activated upon contact with hot areas, or targeted delivery of coolant to overheating zones detected by sensors.
The scientists conducted their experiment on a mock-up that simulated the operation of a computer system. Despite the limited data obtained, they are confident that the hybrid approach to cooling could also find applications in areas such as electric vehicles, batteries, high-power lasers and LED lighting.
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