The "Cool Brick" Can Cool Off an Entire Room Using Nothing But Water

ErnieKey writes Emerging Objects, a company which experiments with 3D printing technology, has created what they call the "Cool Brick." Using basic concepts of evaporation, it holds water like a sponge, takes in hot dry air and converts it into cool moist air. 3D-printed with a specially engineered lattice using ceramics, it can be formed into entire walls which could be placed in different rooms of a house or building, thus replacing the need for air conditioning in hot, dry climates such as deserts.

Comments

I would think

[Anonymous Coward]

The last thing you want to have done in a desert is have water evaporate away.

Re:I would think

[Slugster]

This is really the problem with evaporative coolers: they work best in desert/arid environments, where water is (usually) already in (relatively) short supply.

In humid climates water is plentiful--but they barely work at all in humid environments, where they mainly cause mildew growth (inside the home).

Re:I would think

[Mr D from 63]

The article has no comparison of overall efficiency as compared to evaporative coolers. It looks like a very costly construction technique even if it were refined significantly.

Re:I would think

[DarkOx]

Trouble with that is across most of the western US the aquifer keeps going down and down. We are depleting it by pumping it dry.

  If you build reservoirs, that means damning rivers which has consequences for ecosystem for thousands of miles up and down the river, to say nothing of the nearby effect of flooding in many cases several thousand sq miles, and the effects on the surrounding vegetation that had been living in a fully arid climate and now finds itself next to a large pool of evaporating and seeping surface water. Finally its been shown for the first decade at least while all the vegetation under the reservoir decomposes there are massive releases of greenhouse gases both carbon dioxide and methane.

Short answer there is no free lunch! We are still probably better off with a closed circuit refrigeration cycle powered with that cheap abundant nuclear energy they have been promising for 60 years.
   

Hot, dry climates such as deserts,

[Anonymous Coward]

where water tends to be in short supply than energy, e.g., sunlight.

Water

[Neil Boekend]

Isn't water kinda expensive in deserts?

Re:*cough* bullshit *cough*

[sumdumass]

I'm sure you meant concepts of holistic medicine.

But this brick is little more than a high tech swap cooler already used in homes in dry climates for years and years before AC was even invented. It would seem that the only magicsl thing about this is it would be vertical instead of horizontal. It still needs water and it still works off the evaporative cooling effect.

Re:*cough* bullshit *cough*

[tmosley]

Almost like the fabric medium in current swamp coolers, except they can't be replaced because they are mortared in there, so everyone gets Legionnaire's Disease!

Quite the opposite

[ThatsNotPudding]

it holds water like a sponge, takes in contaminated air and converts it into healthy air.

My concern would be the exact opposite happening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_disease

Re:*cough* bullshit *cough*

[Ol Olsoc]

I'm sure you meant concepts of holistic medicine.

But this brick is little more than a high tech swap cooler already used in homes in dry climates for years and years before AC was even invented. It would seem that the only magicsl thing about this is it would be vertical instead of horizontal. It still needs water and it still works off the evaporative cooling effect.

And outside of the desert, isn't worth crap. Here in the Northeast, all this brick swamp cooler would do is add more water in the air.