Ionic Cooling

Post by **CA_Steve** » Fri May 22, 2009 4:39 am

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.

K.Murx · Post by **K.Murx** » Fri May 22, 2009 9:36 am

For anybody who wonders how it works:

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.

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/17381/

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.

logscool · Post by **logscool** » Fri Jun 12, 2009 3:56 pm

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.