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This 'Cold Tube' can beat the summer heat without relying on air conditioning:
"Air conditioners work by cooling down and dehumidifying the air around us—an expensive and not particularly environmentally friendly proposition," explains project co-lead Adam Rysanek, assistant professor of environmental systems at UBC's school of architecture and landscape architecture, whose work focuses on future energy systems and green buildings. "The Cold Tube works by absorbing the heat directly emitted by radiation from a person without having to cool the air passing over their skin. This achieves a significant amount of energy savings."
The Cold Tube is a system of rectangular wall or ceiling panels that are kept cold by chilled water circulating within them. Since heat naturally moves by radiation from a hotter surface to a colder surface, when a person stands beside or under the panel, their body heat radiates towards the colder panel. This creates a sensation of cooling like cold air flowing over the body even if the air temperature is quite high.
Although these types of cooling panels have been used in the building industry for several decades, what makes the Cold Tube unique is that it does not need to be combined with a dehumidification system. Just as a cold glass of lemonade would condense water on a hot summer day, cooling down walls and ceilings in buildings would also condense water without first drying out the air around the panels. The researchers behind the Cold Tube conceived of an airtight, humidity-repelling membrane to encase the chilled panels to prevent condensation from forming while still allowing radiation to travel through.
A new cooling system for your home?
(Score: 2) by tizan on Thursday August 20 2020, @01:45PM (3 children)
Air conditioners are on the same physical principle as water cooled pipes...a reverse Carnot engine.
The quantity of heat transferred from a hot reservoir to a cold reservoir is a function of the temperature difference...whether you used expansion of gas or conduction to water.
So if you put the heat exchanger of an AC in a bath of cold water it will achieve the same heat exchange for amount of work needed limited by the Carnot engine model (2nd law of thermodynamics)
I bet that an air conditioner compressor is closer to a Carnot engine than a pump of water that depend on conductivity of water and pumping it against gravity.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 20 2020, @04:58PM
Second time I've seen this. In a circular system you are not pumping against gravity.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 20 2020, @05:19PM (1 child)
Standard A/C uses the refrigeration cycle (30 years since I took thermodynamics - it could be Carot, seems like most commonly used cycles were...)
Cold pipes, on the other hand, are just cold pipes - any way you can make them: geothermal (Chicago has great potential for pulling cold water from the bottom of the lake, if you can handle the biofouling cost effectively), exotic cycles like the solar powered ice maker [energy-concepts.com], the horribly inefficient Peltier which might become interesting if it can be made cheaply and coupled with cheap solar power, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday August 20 2020, @07:39PM
Carot
The Carot cycle is mostly used by Bugs Bunny. You could try the Carnot cycle, but I care not.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!