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Thermoacoustic Cooler Means Green-Friendly Icecream
MuddyRiverDoc writes "National Public Radio aired a story describing ice cream
manufacturer Ben & Jerry's sponsored
development of a thermoacoustic refrigeration technology, which uses helium gas
subjected to ultra-loud 173 db sound to chill an ice cream cooler. The NPR interview and
pictures of the Penn State researchers who did the development is
available. There is also a brief description of the technique at the Penn State Live site and at the BBC, and an
over-cute Ben & Jerry's broadband presentation, Sounds Cool!, that
does however provide a useful diagram. Thermoacoustic refrigeration has been a focus of research
for more than a decade at Purdue
and elsewhere,
and has reportedly flown on the Space Shuttle, but this prototype is reportedly
the first that demonstrates the size, efficiency, and quiet operation that
promises successful commercial introduction. Cool Sound Industries,
Inc. is reportedly exclusively licensed for this thermoacoustic technology."
Now I can buy that new kick-ass sound system without worrying about that new fridge my wife has been hounding me about and not feel guilty!
It's hard enough to remember my opinions, never mind the reasons for them..
When Unilever bought them out, most of us (shareholders, that is) assumed B&J's would get folded into the corporate machine and lose some of its identity. It's good to see that they've sort of remained a seperate entity that just happens to be owned by a corporate giant.
Well, here's yet another link that says..
But from the outside, it's no noisier than your typical icebox. The noise generated by the Penn State fridge can only be reached when the gas is under tremendous amounts of pressure -- 10 atmospheres worth. If the gas escapes, the pressure dissipates and the sound dies down.
"Yo B, turn that sh*t down..."
"Naw man, it's cool...just makin' ice cream"
"Word"
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
Inside the canister there's 198 Decibels going on... That would shatter your ear drums and make your eyes bleed (possibly) pretty quick I understand...
Outside the container all your hear is a regular humming noise at one frequency...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Peltier coolers are very inefficient in terms of heat shift. Right now, the best known materials aren't much more than ~10% of Carnot (thermodynamically limited) efficiency. This means that they produce a lot of heat to move just a little. This is why your Peltier block will get pretty chilly on one side but scalding hot on the other and why CPU Peltier rigs virtually require a water block to operate. Standard phase-change coolers are much better, and these new devices (haven't read the article yet) may be even better.
Nowadays "Green Friendly" means something that you can print on a flyer to drive sales, not something that has anything to do with the enviroment. We've already done away with freon.
I like watching the recent phenomenon of both wood and plastic products being promoted as "Green Friendly," One, because it's, like, natural, organic, renewable and shit, and the other because, like, it's a recycled resource and doesn't require cutting down any huggable trees and shit ( and I can only surmise the latter have never been to the Newark area. Well known for cracking plants. Very few trees.)
Every product is "Green Friendly," if you know how to write the brochure to make it that way.
KFG
Hi, I live in Canada and I've always wondered why we didn't have a fridge that would take advantage of the outside temperature ? I mean, when it gets down to -20s celcius and you spend a lot of energy heating your house to +20 celcius, then you spend some more energy to cool down the fridge inside the house (although it actually participates in heating up your house), it sounds kind of ridiculous, don't you think ? Is there a particular reason for this ? Maybe it wouldn't be of much use for anyone but canadians, russians, norvegian and the like, but still... I've always known there was a link between noise and temperature... After all, my fridge sure is noisy !
IANWYTIA (I Am Not Who You Think I Am)
There is another disadvantage - Helium is a finite resource (excluding fusion). A lot of our current supply of helium is collected almost as a by-product of natural gas mining. When the supply runs out, which is anticipated to happen with a few decades, there won't be any liquid helium for super cooling or *gasp* for your party balloons - let alone to chill your groceries