New fiber-based membranes might soon cool our data centers with zero extra energy—just evaporation.
Key Points at a Glance
- Engineers at UC San Diego created a passive cooling membrane for electronics
- The system uses evaporation to dissipate heat with no added energy
- Membranes handle record-breaking heat flux: over 800 watts per cm²
- This could dramatically cut energy use in data centers
- A startup is now working to commercialize the technology
As AI and cloud computing boom, the energy demands of data centers are spiraling. Up to 40% of their power is spent just on cooling. But what if computers could cool themselves—silently, passively, with no fans or pumps?
That’s now a real possibility, thanks to engineers at the University of California San Diego. They’ve designed a novel fiber membrane that passively removes heat via evaporation. No moving parts, no power consumption—just smart material engineering.
Detailed in the journal Joule, this innovation could reshape how we manage heat in everything from server farms to high-powered consumer electronics. It relies on capillary action through tiny, interconnected pores in a specially designed fiber network. As liquid moves across the surface and evaporates, it pulls heat away from the electronics below. The membrane is placed above microchannels that supply the cooling liquid continuously.
Evaporative cooling isn’t new—it’s in laptops, air conditioners, and even spacecraft—but previous membranes either clogged or triggered unstable boiling. UCSD’s secret was finding a perfect pore size and structure. The result: stable, high-performance heat dissipation across wide temperature ranges.
During lab tests, the membrane hit a heat flux of over 800 watts per square centimeter—an astonishing figure for passive cooling systems. Even better, it maintained that performance steadily over hours, suggesting real-world viability.
“These membranes were originally made for filtration. But their structure turned out to be perfect for cooling,” said lead researcher Renkun Chen. “We just needed to reinforce them mechanically—and they performed far beyond our expectations.”
Beyond the lab, the team is moving fast. They’re building cold plate prototypes—flat heat-transfer components used in high-performance chips—and launching a startup to commercialize the tech. With energy use in cooling projected to double by 2030, the timing couldn’t be better.
And there’s more to come. The team is refining their membrane design and exploring the theoretical limits of this technique. If they can improve its efficiency even further, this could become a go-to solution for thermal management across industries—from data centers to electric vehicles.
One thing is clear: the future of electronics may stay cool not with high-tech hardware, but with high-performance fibers and a bit of smart physics.
Source: UC San Diego Today
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