Compressor-Free Refrigerator On the Way 67
Iddo Genuth writes "Scientists from Penn State University are designing the future of refrigerators and other cooling devices through magnetic field refrigeration. The investigation pertaining to electrically induced heat effects of some ferroelectric polymers might one day replace electrically powered refrigerators and their compressors and coils. The researchers are focusing on ferroelectric polymers that exhibit temperature changes at room temperature under an electrical field. The same technology might also find its way into computers and other devices in the future, making them run cooler without complex cooling mechanisms."
Dupe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dupe (Score:5, Funny)
This is a new feature on Slashdot. The same article is rehashed again and again each time using less and less information. Eventually the title will be "stuff" and the text will say "this matters". Furthermore it will be tagged with every previous tags and will cover every previous discussion on Slashdot ever.
Then ????????
Then comes the singularity.
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This is a new feature on Slashdot. The same article is rehashed again and again each time using less and less information. Eventually the title will be "stuff" and the text will say "this matters". Furthermore it will be tagged with every previous tags and will cover every previous discussion on Slashdot ever.
Then ????????
Then comes the profit!
Fixed that for you.
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Don't dismiss new articles on previously covered topics out of hand. If you read what the ancient greeks wrote about the sky and stopped there, you would be pretty ignorant about the things we've learned since.
This isn't a dupe. It's a new article about a topic that has previously been
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Don't dismiss new articles on previously covered topics out of hand.
Unless the previous article was from 2 days before the new one and covers nothing new.
Re:Dupe (Score:4, Informative)
I did read the linked article (albeit only skimming). It adds nothing to the original Slashdot story, since it is using the Penn State news item from the original Slashdot story as a source.
Perhaps I shouldn't have called dupe. After all, it was an inferior summary of a month old article. "Cheap knock-off" might be more accurate.
How energy efficient is this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there are other ways to cool without a compressor, but they are in a lot of cases nowhere as energy efficient as the tried and true way of compression/evaporation. For example, peltiers can do cooling, but they take a lot more power and produce less temperature differential than the standard methods.
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No, it was a microwaveable milkshake. Basically a completely frozen milkshake that got partially thawed in the microwave.
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Wasn't there also something called microwaveable Ice Cream?
You may be thinking of thermoacoustic refrigeration [wikipedia.org].
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream funded some research [thermoacousticscorp.com] at Pennsylvania State University to develop a thermoacoustic chiller for their company.
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It's ok - we only need one case of a technology that's as efficient as compression-based refrigeration (so long as it does as well or better in other important criteria.)
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I vaguely recall an article on /. some years ago about a different way that, again as I recall, was about as efficient as physically possible. It had something to do with using electrons being jumped across a vacuum barrier to carry the heat away. Anybody have any idea what I'm talking about? Or, what the status is of that technology? Just did a quick Google search, and nothing looked like what I am thinking of.
Dupe (Score:2, Redundant)
This is a dupe from August 10th [slashdot.org]. Sorry guys.
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Oh great, and now my comment is a dupe too. Curse you, ShadowRangerRIT!
Re:Dupe (Score:5, Funny)
Congratulations! You have won the 'Find the Dupe on Slashdot' contest! To collect your prize, send your social security number, current address, and bank account information to me, the head of the International Find the Dupe on Slashdot contest. I will send you this lovely dinette set, a copy of the home game, and a NEW CAR!
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Oh,no, I fell for that once. I'm not falling for it again. You know what they say, fool me once, shame... shame on you. Fool me... you can't get fooled again.
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So that's how Ford is moving SUVs off the lot these days.
Asimov was right (Score:2)
now it just needs to be atomic and fit in the palm of your hand :-)
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The results wouldn't be pretty.....
But the results might be pretty cool....
More importantly, (Score:2)
Where's my reverse microwave oven?
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DO NOT TRY THIS. You'll build a time machine, not a reverse microwave!
Magnetic cooling for computers? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah... you go ahead and use magnets to "cool" your computer. Let me know how that works out. For our younger readers: holding magnets close to food doesn't turn the food into a useless brick, but holding a magnet near a computer will probably do that.
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Not at all. For example. hard disks these days contain a voice coil which includes VERY strong magnets, and pretty darn close to the platters too.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_coil [wikipedia.org]
Re:Magnetic cooling for computers? (Score:5, Funny)
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For our younger readers: holding magnets close to food doesn't turn the food into a useless brick,
For our older readers: This is no longer the case.
Ah, that explains why the Twinkie I left next to my pile of old hard drives broke my teeth.
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When has this EVER been the case? Back in the days of the reel/reel tape drive? I have used magnets (powerful, unshielded speakers) very close to computers since I started using computers (15 yrs ago with a commodore C64) and have never had the misfortune of a failure due to magnetic interference. Now I did have more than one monitor get a little fuzzy due to the polarization of the screen, but that was back in the CRT days (before they had degaussers, which is actually another interesting hole in the ma
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I would say that it is true for floppy drives, but probably not so much for hard drives.
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Kraft Singles American cheese.
Unwrap, insert into floppy drive while it's still cool.
Perfect fit.
Impossible to eject.
Your "friend" will notice it when he tries to insert a floppy, or when it melts.
Hilarious.
If only Kraft made 12 cm discs of cheese...
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For the "magnets dont affect computers" replies, please slap some refrigerator magnets on your hard drives, CPU, etc. and tell us all about the results, if you insist it doesn't do anything then what's to fear in the test?
Okay, now what? (Score:2)
Done. Okay, not on the computer I'm currently using, but I've done this experiment before. Unless you've got a hellaciously-strong magnet, you simply won't be able to effect the proper functioning of a microchip with a magnetic field.
As other people have mentioned, there are very powerful magnets inside the hard drive, and as it turns out, the magnet isn't likely to stick to anywhere other than the voice coil or spindle motors, where it won't do any damage to the recording media.
This table:
http://en.wikiped [wikipedia.org]
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Well, shoot the horse and slap me silly! I am still too paranoid to try it due to years of watching innocent people wipe out floppies with magnets, I know it's not the same but watch someone scream and cry for losing a term paper that way and you get paranoid of magnets + computers.
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It's current. Being the Sony guru at the company, I remember being asked to look at a co-worker's PlayStation 2 devkit that was mysteriously not working. He had it sitting on a subwoofer. I told him to move it far away from the powerful magnet. He looked at me like I was from Mars. We moved the devkit away from the subwoofer and it immediately started working.
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Did that have to do with the fact that the PS2 dvd laser was a horribly flawed design and could barely read discs on a GOOD day? I have three playstation 2 consoles that won't work anymore no matter how far they are from a magnetic source.
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When has this EVER been the case? Back in the days of the reel/reel tape drive?
Normal magnets could probably mess up a floppy disc. Also, really old computers supposedly used little magnets strung on a grid of wires as their RAM, perhaps getting other magnets too close would break this (not that anyone would be allowed to open the cabinet unsupervised...)?
My highly original thought on the subject (Score:3, Interesting)
This could feasibly be used to make a practical air conditioner by having a segmented disk shape block that allows air to pass through.
Outside air would pass through one half of the disk that is currently energised (the electric field orders the polymer and thus releases heat).
The inside air would pass through the other half that is currently not energised (the relaxation of the electric field allows the material to absorb heat).
The disk rotates with segments shifting between the outside / inside halves, the electric field is applied by a simple electric comutation.
This is not a true "no moving parts" system but it has the potential to be an order of magnitude quieter than the current air conditioning units.
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I'm not sure how close they come to reverse Carnot in a modern "fridge", but they are very durable. It seems like we had two refridgerators the whole time I was growing up, and the only reason we got the 2nd one was because we were in a different house. It's not exactly like they were being fixed all the time either. In fact, aside from the fact that the fridge we had when I was a kid required manual defrost, I don't think they ever required maintenance. The HVAC unit in my old condo had to be pulled. This
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Durable, probably. From what I gather, there's no moving parts. Cheap? Eventually, yes. Efficient? Probably not. Silent, though.
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Going by the rough description in TFA, it sounds like electricity's effect on the ferropolymer causes its bonds to strengthen, or perhaps to magnetically align, increasing rigidity, reducing the material's potential for containing kinetic energy.
If the material's new state caps the amount of kinetic energy it can store, it has to move on - first law of thermodynamics and all.
This may be the next interesting bit in applying their discovery - finding a compatible heat conductor, and also learning the optimal
Re:My highly original thought on the subject (Score:5, Informative)
TFA is written very poorly and describes a phenomena involving polymers that is already widely known. There are many examples. Here is one you can try using something far less exotic than the polymers mentioned in the article.
For this example, take a rubber band. Stretch it out. Touch the stretched rubber band to your lips. It will feel warm. Hold it in the stretched position for a few seconds to let it cool down to room temperature. Now let the rubber band relax, and once again touch it to your lips. You should now notice that it will feel cool.
The above process uses exactly the same principles described in TFA. Stretching the rubber band causes reduction of disorder by aligning the polymer chains. It also warms the rubber band because of the work applied. As you hold the rubber band in the stretched state it will cool to room temperature releasing some of the energy needed to heat it. This is equivalent to the step where the electrical field is applied.
Now release the rubber band. The polymer chains now revert back to a disordered state, cooling the rubber. Since the rubber band started in a stretched room temperature state the relaxed rubber band will now be below room temperature. this is equivalent to turning off the electric field as mentioned in the article.
Voila. This is a wonderful new refrigeration system that will replace all existing known cooling systems. NOT.
There are so many issues with practical application of this it is not funny. If these issues didn't exist we would have been using rubber band refrigerators for many decades already.
Also, please note that from a thermodynamics point of view this is essentially how a conventional refrigeration system works (albeit fat far more efficiently).
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Say what you will, but I am definitely looking forward to our rubber band powered refrigeration units!
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A better way, with less moving parts (Score:1)
First off, the way you want to make the stuff is as a thin plastic film. Aluminize both sides, and you can apply the voltage very easily. Fold it in half, and the high voltage electrode is sealed inside the plastic, so you're less likely to electrocute people.
Next, roll it up, except keep a gap between each layer so you can blow air through the roll. This will need something like the middle layer of corrugated cardboard -- making little air channels against the film.
Finally, you want a bellows, to p
This is news? (Score:2, Informative)
Vendors like Coleman have been selling solid-state peltier effect portable refrigerators for camping use for years.
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It's not news, but not because it's solid state. It's because of the method used: ferroelectric polymers that exhibit temperature changes at room temperature under an electrical field, rather than the peltier effect.
That said, it's still a dupe.
Great but... (Score:2)
This technology is of great use even today in the lab, but will most likely take much longer to bring to your kitchen. Currently, the magnets required for the heat transfer need to be cooled to subzero temperatures anyhow.
The Wikipedia article on Continuous Adiabatic Demagnetisation Refrigeration [wikipedia.org] does a pretty good job of explaining this.
Also keep in mind that the magnetic fields used in this cooling method requires several Teslas to efficiently transfer heat. Aside from being difficult to produce, shoddi
Pfft. (Score:2)
They've been around for while. Any standard fridge can be made to work without a compressor (read: "pump") just by using a pilot light (even just a candle) at a low point to get the coolant to circulate up and around.
prior art exists (Score:2)
albert einstein and leo szilard had one of these patented in the 20s, somebody in germany made them for a while. very, very old news indeed.
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My grandfather had such a fridge without a compressor. It had gaz evaporated by an electric heator. It was a small form factor (Kind of 50l), rounded corners and door.
In the early 80's, my uncle had a small fridge in his truck. It could be powered electrically 12v or by gaz. That worked by a heater device and no compressor.
Hmmmm .... (Score:3, Funny)
What I want to know is how this is affected by my huge collection of fridge magnets?
Will one more souvenir magnet from a trip cause my milk to spoil? Or will I have to thaw my mustard? :-P
Cheers
Well, that is "coming soon" (Score:1)
..and so on, like so many tech advances out there, but if you want an alternative *now*, you can get a DC powered Sundanzer refrigerator or freezer [sundanzer.com] and power one of them from a single solar panel. They are conventional compressors, but are built loads better with much more insulation than most other units. I don't need either now, a fridge or freezer, ours are both still pretty new and functional, but next time I need a new one, that's going to be it.
Say What? (Score:2)
...replace electrically powered refrigerators and their compressors and coils. The researchers are focusing on ferroelectric polymers that exhibit temperature changes at room temperature under an electrical field.
So they're going to replace electrically powered refrigerators with refrigerators that are powered by electricity?
That's so cool... (Score:1)
On The Way? (Score:2)
These are no more "on the way" than the ultrasonic refrigerators publicized a couple years ago. In both cases an effect is being played with. The technology necessary to produce a viable refrigeration unit will, in both cases, have to wait until they're done fooling around with the lab table versions.
Just frozen food for thought..... (Score:1)
With Global Warming isn't refrigeration going to be moot. Just put your beer outside :D
Already available at Thinkgeek (Score:1)
Magnetic Fridge? (Score:1)
I wonder if the contents of the fridge will become polarized?
How hard would it be to eat cabbage that attracts to your fork? Or drink a beer that keeps trying to stick to your washing machine...