Laminar Cooling is the Future
The largest markets for cooling are air conditioners, refrigerators and freezers all cooling a usable volume, almost all served by the bulky, rumbling pipes and troublesome gases and liquids of vapor compression cooling. It is extremely difficult to find something better but the new Zhar Research report, “Solid State Cooling Materials and Systems PDRC, Caloric, Thermoelectric, Other: Markets, Technology 2025-2045” names options likely to make a significant dent from around ten years from now.
Needs go laminar
Thermoelectric cooling and temperature control applications 2025 and 2045. Source, Zhar Research report, “Solid State Cooling Materials and Systems PDRC, Caloric, Thermoelectric, Other: Markets, Technology 2025-2045”.
Less visible is the burgeoning need for laminar cooling materials given global warming with many countries encountering a lethal 50C or more and massively more heat generation by next information, computing, telecommunications and electronics technologies. Add laminar solar panels working more efficiently when cooled.
Here are some examples. From 2030, 6G Communications will be with us and, like previous generations, the power, and associated heat, of the base stations will leap at least 60% and their number will jump too. 6G will also add new large laminar devices – some like billboards - to enhance the propagation path, many needing power and cooling. Data centers are generating far more heat as they cope with cybercurrency and other “gas guzzlers”. Artificial intelligence feeds that problem. A single request on ChatGPT consumes about 10 times as much electricity as a typical Google search, according to the International Energy Agency. By 2026, the AI industry is projected to consume at least 10 times as much electricity, with attendant heating, as in 2023, says the IEA. AI alone will spark a 160% surge in US power demand from data centers by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs.
Large lithium-ion batteries will sell well for about ten more years, and they become highly dangerous if not held to a precise temperature range. Electronics are slated to consume over a fifth of the world’s electricity use by 2030. Improvement is also critical for the global water-energy issue in the face of the tremendous energy and water demand for cooling batteries and power electronics.
A common factor
Dr Peter Harrop, Zhar Research CEO, says,
“A common factor in most of this is the need for laminar cooling, partly because the hot item is laminar and partly because crudely cooling the environment around the problem is no longer affordable or efficient. Indeed, this story goes full circle back to that vapor compression cooling of buildings which will be unaffordable and too restricted for most people, cooling apparel (laminar) even keeping them cool when out and about.”
Widespread laminar cooling
Accordingly, there will be a huge demand for laminar cooling from dynamic cooling of hot spots in electronics to cooling fabrics as tents, car covers, apparel, hospital blankets and much more. This year has seen studies of options for these including evaporative (limited time) cooling, use of liquids in microchannels and convective cooling but the winner has to be longer life, more reliable and versatile and that means solid state laminar cooling including conformal, fabric and flexible versions.
Candidate technologies
The Zhar Research report, “Solid State Cooling Materials and Systems PDRC, Caloric, Thermoelectric, Other: Markets, Technology 2025-2045” recommends radiative cooling into the atmospheric window, particularly the Passive Daylight Radiative Cooling PDRC variant, electrocaloric and wide area thermoelectric cooling and the not-so-laminar elastocaloric cooling as among the best options, often in combination. Only the first sees ten companies commercialising the technology, and then only at early stage. However, the tsunami of research on laminar cooling and the increasingly urgent demand for solutions, leads Zhar Research to forecast that this will be a very large business on a twenty-year view.
As Harrop says,
“It is not a matter of finding a drop-in replacement for vapor compression but increasingly multi-mode, multipurpose smart materials providing cooling and more, even as structural elements. Mostly, they will be in laminar form, particularly for radically different, new requirements.”