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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.
The last thing you want to have done in a desert is have water evaporate away.
where water tends to be in short supply than energy, e.g., sunlight.
There is a chart which shows the optimal temperature for an office is around 23'C (Google "HVAC comfort chart"), this is the temperature which has the widest acceptable range for humidity that people find comfortable.
Evaporative cooling brings the air temperature down by increasing the humidity of the air. The issue is that to achieve sufficient cooling the humidity increases beyond the comfort zone without bringing the temperature down sufficiently.
What would be interesting is a two stage evaporative cooling that does not require mechanical assistance. In a two stage system the first stage provides net cooling without humidifying the air used by the second stage. It results in cooler air with less humidity.
ZombieEngineer
evaporative humidifiers work great until they start breeding molds and algae. The water channels need to be cleaned and the screens replaced. The screen in this case being a wall in the house.
I lived in an apartment which had a swamp cooler and no air conditioning. Even in the dry air of suburban Los Angeles, it sucked. It required moving massive amounts of air, which meant constant noise. It meant interior doors – and exterior windows – had to be left open.
I suppose it's better than nothing, but so is a fan and a wet towel.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
You seem to have a sore throat. You should consider buying a 'health brick'. 3d printed with a specially engineered ceramic lattice, 'health brick' uses basic concepts of medicine, it holds water like a sponge, takes in contaminated air and converts it into healthy air.
Isn't water kinda expensive in deserts?
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
Add that to areas that already have a high humidity and this thing is useless. Then you don't need a 3d printed brick, you can soak a towel let it dry for the same effect.
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.
I am not an engineer (nor a zombie for that matter) so excuse me if I am wrong, but aren't you essentially describing how an AC unit works?
No. An AC unit takes advantage of gas pressure laws. It compresses a gas, then allows it to expand. As the gas expands, its temperature drops. By wrapping all this up with a set of radiator coils and fan(s), you can pump heat from inside to outside. Along the way, the cooled air will drop any water vapor that exceeds the carrying capacity for that temperature.
So an AC requires a pump (which can be mechanical or a heat source) and air recirculators, and the net result is air that is both cooler and drier.
A swamp cooler is almost completely passive. It needs a mechanism to inject the water, and (preferably) something to help the water-laden air move, but instead of lowering room humidity, it raises it.
No, they are describing a good old-fashioned evaporative cooler. We used to call then swamp coolers. They are effective in arrid climates. They can cool the air a few degrees. They also add a little humidity to the air, which is nice in the desert. It would not work in a humid climate.
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!
I want a wall that removes cool, wet air from the room and replaces it with dry, warm air so that I can dry laundry indoors in winter without covering my house in condensation and mold.
That's called a dehumifier and there are many people that sell them at a reasonable price. I bought an "ebac" brand one since it's the brand favoured by tradespeople for things like drying out water damage and drying plaster more quicky. It works great.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Two problems.
First, the problem that every evaporative cooler has: water is scarce in the hot dry places where evaporative cooling works well.
Second, water always has some minerals dissolved in it that crystallize out when you remove the water. A traditional swamp cooler has an active flow and a reservoir that you have to empty to keep these from building up, but with these "smart bricks", the pores in the bricks are going to fill up with lime and gypsum, and pretty soon they'll be "dumb bricks".
Oh, and by the way - do you know what the gas is that is responsible for 95% of Global Warming? No, not CO2. Water Vapour. I wonder why no one has called for this invention to be banned out of hand...?
First, most water vapor in the atmosphere comes from natural sources. Unless you're planning on eliminating oceans, lakes, rivers, swamps, wetlands and rain (and thus killing all life on earth), the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere isn't going to change.
Second, Water vapor condenses and precipitates out of the atmosphere naturally, so it doesn't build up beyond the levels that are already there It's not a problem. CO2, on the other hand, does not condense and precipitate out of the atmosphere naturally (unless you drop the earth's temperature to -147ÂC, that is, which would kill almost all life on earth and leaving it for the tardigrades to inherit). It does build up and it is a problem.
My concern would be the exact opposite happening: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_disease
It's not bullshit. Many commercial buildings in hot dry climate use evaporative chilers. You can also get devices that do it indoors. The issue with doing it indoors, is that once the air becomes saturated with moisture it stops working. Plus the room gets wet and cold, which is not a good environment, it leads to mold and mildew. Indoor evaporative coolers are best used in places that you only want to cook on rare occasions, that are very dry, and are located far from a window.
Termites have been successfully farming arid land using this technology for longer than humans have been on this planet. The high humidity climate is a benefit to the termites since termite farms grow a specific species of mold for food. The mold apparently evolved from a tropical species but is now totally dependent on termite climate control technology. The mounds themselves are built using technology similar to a 3D printer with 20 million print heads. They use spit and mud rather than hot plastic but the basic idea is the same.
I have termites on the brain since I recently visited the Kimberley in NW Australia, to say this termite technology has been successful is an understatement. The mounds are more closely packed than the apartments in the inner suburbs of Sydney, I'm not sure how far they stretch but I drove from Broome to Fitzroy crossing and they didn't thin out. Also note that the entire Kimberley region is under 2 meters of water in the wet season, the few people that live there survive the wet with tin boats to get between buildings on stilts or one of the few islands of high ground, not sure how termites survive the annual flood?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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.
Yeah, but this one is *3D PRINTED*! That makes this version much cooler.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
British houses have a double-brick-wall construction, mostly.
The idea is that the outside wall can get as wet as it likes (and it's Britain, so it gets wet!) but the internal wall is separated by an air gap. Whenever you join the outside wall to the inside (e.g. cables, etc.) you have to be careful how you do so so that water can't transfer between the two.
You still put in vents, etc. to get some kind of airflow from outside to in, however, because without vents (and with modern double-glazing especially) you just end up with condensation everywhere inside and mould in your internal plaster.
And one of the biggest problems with old houses built like this is still damp (there's no such thing as "rising damp" by the way, but that's another matter) and mould.
Having a wall with water in it is not a good idea, certainly not inside a building. We specifically build our houses to account for this and it's still possible to get mould inside if the water breaks through or settles inside.
The only thing that could combat it is a very good airflow so that water can't settle which, shockingly, will cool those kinds of places anyway.
A swamp cooler is cool because it cools the air, making it cooler. 3D printed stuff is cool, so a cool 3D printed cooler is a cooler cooler, making the room cooler.
You might want to google "adaptive comfort."
Comfort is a function of temperature, humidity, air movement, radiant temperatures, clothing, and metabolism. There are a fair number of variables to play with, enthalpy is just the easiest to look at.
The other interesting thing about deserts is monsoons. Swamp coolers don't do much good then.
Really it's just swamp cooler media. The only thing that makes swamp cooling viable is high CFM airflow. I lived with evaporative cooling only (no refrigerated a/c) for 25 years and a small house needs at least a 3000 CFM squirrel cage fan encased in a frame of three or four water soaked paper lattice or Excelsior wood fiber pads providing the moisture. The biggest problem is cooling media degradation due to calcification from hard water. As the water evaporates it leaves minerals behind. Some minerals do get suspended in the air, making a fine white dust, but most of the "lime" rinses through the media and is collected by a pump that runs it through the media again. The water becomes supersaturated in a day and dumps the precipitate on the media as the water evaporates and the temperature of the pad drops. Pumps with a "purge cycle" mitigate the issue somewhat but the media (and pump, and tubing) still becomes plugged and brittle in at most two seasons. Do you print a new wall at that point, or use purified water from the start? A new wood fiber pad is under four bucks (google "swamp cooler pads"), so I don't see how printing media is going to be useful. Passive cooling with wind power is right out, if the air is not moving fast enough it just warms up and then you have heat and humidity.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
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.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
he, he, you said "cooler". I see what you did there!
I know I don't know what I don't know.
Possibilities I see are:
1) The media itself is able to withstand many "purge cycles" using acid to dissolve the calcification. I've had good results with citric acid to remove humidifier scale - the problem is that at least with my humidifier, the acid also attacks the wick so eventually the wick falls apart. A plastic mesh wick might be able to withstand this abuse.
2) The vastly increased surface area of this approach might significantly reduce the airflow needed, and especially reduce the backpressure encountered by any air circulation mechanism.
That said, it's still just a glorified swamp cooler so it won't work in many areas. In most of the areas it WOULD work, water is a precious resource.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Agreed; this is definitely vaporware.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I am unaware of any dry climates that have a monsoon season.