New silent pump for water cooled PCs

Posted on Monday, August 25 2003 @ 14:08 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
The Newscientist writes that a mechanical engineer at the Stanford University has developed a new water-cooling system with a pump that requires no moving parts and thus is absolutely silent. Here is a quote how it works :
What makes Cooligy's approach different is that it uses a pump relying on electro-osmosis to move the water, meaning it has no moving parts and is silent. The pump was developed by mechanical engineer Ken Goodson at Stanford University.

It consists of a disc of glass two millimetres thick and five centimetres in diameter. This is riddled with little tubes, about one micron in diameter, which pass from one flat side of the disc to the other.

Applying an electric charge across the disc interacts with charged layers on the surface of the pores and causes ions to migrate. These drag water molecules along in the process, creating a flow.

Goodson's experiments have produced a flow rate of 200 millilitres per minute. Keane says this would be enough to cool chips that radiate 120 watts of heat per square centimetre, with hotspots of up to 500 watts. In comparison, Intel's Centrino chip dissipates 35 watts.
Sounds good for use in laptops, and maybe even for desktop pc's if it can really cool down chips that consume 120W. A little comparision; even Intel his upcoming Prescott only uses a little bit more than 100W. But I'm just wondering at what kind of temperatures a Prescott will be of it is cooled down by something like this.. But it does sounds like a very good solution for laptops, home theatre PC's, and so on.

Read more at Newscientist


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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