Ionocaloric Cooling: A Sustainable Refrigeration Technology

Craig: ionocaloric cooling. this is exciting topic because it could completely change the face of refrigeration and air conditioning, moving us away from harmful gases that are warming our planet and offering a safer, more efficient alternative. what's going on here, john?

Jon: yeah. this is cool. i know we've covered refrigeration, i think, once or twice before in the past. this is a new one that we haven't covered. so scientists at berkeley lab, they've invested a completely new way of keeping things cool that's been inspired by how salt melts ice on winter roads. so what they've done is instead of using harmful gases like traditional refrigerators and air conditioners, this ionocaloric cooling method, it uses salt and electricity to create cooling effects. now let me how it works is pretty simple. just like adding salt to ice makes it melt without adding heat, this technology uses salt particles called ions flowing through a special liquid to make cooling happen. so when electricity flows through the system, it moves these salt particles around and it causes the liquid to freeze or melt in ways that absorb heat from the surroundings, essentially cooling things down. so why does this matter? right? it matters because, for those of you that don't know, current refrigeration systems, they use gases that are thousands of times worse for global warming than carbon dioxide. so this new method could replace harmful chemicals with completely safe recyclable materials while potentially being more efficient and cheaper. so we're not there yet though for this to be use useful. in their first test, they did achieve a 25 degree celsius or 45 degree fahrenheit temperature drop using less than one volt electricity, which is better performance than other experimental cooling options. and those other ones are, like, i think we talked about elasto caloric, we've covered, but then there's air based, but then, obviously, there's vapor compression. so what are your thoughts on this, craig? do you think this is a potential here?

Craig: well, this is interesting, and i'm gonna dumb it down for people here. so it's a new way to cool things down just using salt and a tiny bit of electricity, instead of using compressed gas. right? it moves ions from salt in a liquid. and when the ions move, it causes the material to melt and absorb the heat, making things cold.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: so when the process averse, it solidifies and releases heat. think of it as a rechargeable cooling cycle based on salt melting, i guess. i like it. i just don't know if it's really going to move the needle in the cooling industry. i mean, it sounds all nice, but how much cooling power are we gonna be able to actually actually produce? what have the labs got us so far at, john?

Jon: what do you mean?

Craig: well, like, i mean, we, the cooling systems achieve temperature changes from, 20, yeah, 25, 28 degrees, using less than one volt of electricity. so i'm saying, like, how much are we actually gonna be able to cool this technology? is it gonna be, like, a whole room? is it really gonna get us much cooler? is it just gonna get us a couple of degrees?

Jon: i think we're gonna be able to surpass. so, they're targeting systems capable of achieving temperature lifts exceeding 50 degrees celsius, which is what's required for practical refrigeration applications. the other one that we'd covered, which is elasto caloric, that's achieved a 75 degree temperature lift. that's a record, but they're in the prototype stage. so iona caloric is an early prototype. elasto caloric is in a prototype stage. and then, obviously, we've got vapor compression, which has a greater than 50 degrees celsius, temperature lift. the thing with the, ionic caloric is it's a 30% efficiency versus other ones, which elasto caloric is variable, air based. it's a 50% efficiency. so, we're getting there, but we're still in the early prototype stage, whereas the other ones are like, the air based is at development stage, lots of corps is at the prototype stage. so we're still early stages.

Craig: yeah. and over 50% of homes, energy goes to heating and cooling. so, potential hvac systems, commercial refrigeration systems, battery thermal management in electric vehicles and so on, and industrial process manufacturing, and data center cooling. i'm just not a 100% sold at this. out of all the cooling things that we've looked at and that we've seen coming out that this is gonna be the one, is that, fair to say?

Jon: it's fair to say, but so here's the thing. it's a solid state technology. right? so that eliminates concerns about refrigerant leaks, which is the hydrofluorocarbons, hfcs, which is used right now. it reduces maintenance requirements, and it potentially offers longer operational lifespans than current conventional system. not this not the other refrigerant technologies that are being developed. now i'm guessing that most of these companies, the appliance companies, aren't gonna like that it's a longer lifespan because then that means it's a they can't sell you as many replacements. right? but, i think this has i think this has, potential. i know hearing salt and using salt in a machine, but it's not salt, it's ions. right? a, in a refrigerant type system might cause some instability or things like that, but i think there's there's a lot of, potential here. what you don't think so?

Craig: hey, mylan. thanks for watching, and thanks for saying hello. i think there's potential. i okay. i look at this thing. okay. so the ions move through the salt, and it melts, and that releases, energy

Jon: yeah.

Craig: which is great. and then the same happens when it solidifies. so my problem is that you only have so much. so how much salt of this type in how big of a container will it take to cool a whole room in the summer? that because at some point, it's gonna be solid and, it needs to melt completely, and then sometimes it could be melted completely and needs to go and when it's the other way, it's gonna be releasing heat. so i look at it little like a, heat pump, i guess, which says cool and heating. but the problem is there you can only do it. when it's all melted, you can't melt it anymore. and when it's all solid, you can't make it solid anymore. so how much do you need?

Jon: that's true. yeah. i don't know. but i think what i was reading is they're they're looking so they're still in the r and d phase. right? so, i think that like, even at the early prototype stage of how they've developed this, i think there's potential for this to i don't know. maybe it's not in hvac systems. it's, maybe it's being used in other systems that support this. maybe it's that. i don't know. but i think this is a technology that will be commercialized at some point. what in what capacity and what application? who knows? maybe it's in data

Craig: centers. yeah. and i think, it looks like based on the research, they're already trying to improve the like cycle beyond the current prototypes and extending the operational commercial viability, and they wanna achieve, up to a 100 degrees with the changes with the advanced materials. so, you know, maybe my skepticism is, unduly, put towards this. it looks like it's gonna be a very interesting technology. i'm just not sure if it's actually, able to do what they're talking about. is this actually gonna be industrial level cooling twenty four hours a day? where does the heat go? is it ejected outside like many of the other things? i guess that's easy enough to do. yeah. is so i guess it's easy enough to do. they probably already figured those things out to some degree, and maybe my concerns are unwarranted. it just feels like, you know, at some point, it won't be able to cool anymore or it won't be able to heat anymore depending on which way you're going.

Jon: there's they they've gotta have a a they've gotta have a solution for that. maybe not. but, so apparently, like, there's major hvac manufacturers that are actively seeking breakthrough cooling technologies. and, apparently, the global hvac market is projected to exceed i didn't realize this. this is huge. $280,000,000,000 by 2023. oh, sorry. 2030. 2023.

Craig: and, i guess, they're using liquid phase materials that are pumpable, so solving some of the solid state limit. so if you can pump the salt through, then it can exist in another state somewhere else and, you know, form either a solid or liquid and come back through. so, absolutely, they probably solved this problem. i'm just again, how much does it take? how long does this take to switch states to come back and be reusable? so, again, how much do you need? i like the idea. it looks great. it looks like it's gonna be low energy. anytime we can come up with solutions that are better for the environmental raw or lower energy because, let's face it, ai is gonna take all the energy it can get. and so every volt that we could save, will scoop up and do, but, we'll, do our best to keep this low voltage stuff happening. i love where this is going.

Jon: let's kick out for a second.

Craig: so okay.

Jon: how the system operates. so it controls the flow of electricity charged atoms or ions from salts through a working fluid. and so that's typically ethylene carbonate. so when the electric current is applied, ions migrate through the medium, fundamentally altering the material's melting point through a collocative properties, which is the same scientific principle behind road salt, preventing ice formation. so the ionic concentration change, it forces a solid to liquid phase transition, and that absorbs latent heat from the surrounding environment, which creates a cooling effect. so the process is also reversible. so when the current is removed or reversed, ions are extracted, the material solidifies and releases heat, completing that thermodynamic cycle. does that make a little bit more sense to you?

Craig: definitely makes more sense. again, i'm just curious as to, how fast that all happens. right? and yeah. how much you would need to cool a large room versus, like, how big of an air conditioner? like, on equivalent size, what's the equivalent of a 5,000 btu or a 50,000 btu size for something like this? that's, i guess, what i'm trying to get at. that can run twenty four hours a day.

Jon: yeah.

Craig: but i'm obviously, they're moving on it. people are really looking into it, and i love the concept of it and that they're, moving this forward. like, you know, this is ionocaloric cooling today is a technology. it's at the early stages, but it's a promise. it's massive. and we'll keep a close eye on this like we do with other cooling technologies. and, you know, maybe i'm a skeptic, but maybe this is the one who's gonna run through, and we'll, let you know what happens as it goes along. will this tech finally be the one that cools our homes and our planet? let us know what you think. leave your comments below.