Ionic Cooling
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Ionic Cooling
I read about this last year - using ionic cooling techniques to replace fan for air flow across CPU. Looks like Tessara is hoping to commercialize the tech.
For anybody who wonders how it works:
Sounds good. But my guess would be that you would still need good case airflow, to actually exhaust the heat out of the case. I think the electrodes need to be fairly close together, so the effect will probably be pretty localized.
So no fanless computer, but more a heatsinkless computer - which is also a good thing.
http://www.technologyreview.com/article/17381/The pump has two basic parts. An electrode tip emits a high voltage that strips electrons from molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in the air, ionizing them. These positively charged ions then flow from the tip to a negatively charged collector electrode. As the ions stream to the collector electrode, "they drag the surrounding air with them, creating a net flow of air," explains Stephen Montgomery, a senior systems engineer at Intel who worked on the project.
Sounds good. But my guess would be that you would still need good case airflow, to actually exhaust the heat out of the case. I think the electrodes need to be fairly close together, so the effect will probably be pretty localized.
So no fanless computer, but more a heatsinkless computer - which is also a good thing.
This technology has been demonstrated in a device called a Ionocraft or a lifter and when multiple electrodes are used you can indeed have a less "localized" air flow like in an Ionocraft. One problem with ionic cooling is that it requires high voltage electricity to power it and not the standard 5 or 12 volts.