Two-Phase Refrigerant Cooling
High-efficiency cooling through phase-change heat transfer
Refrigerants deliver superior cooling performance
Refrigerants are purposely designed to transfer heat, so naturally they perform better than water or air as a medium for heat transfer. The OptiCool system uses R-513A refrigerant, which has similar performance to the widely used R-134a but with a lower GWP (global warming potential) rating.
High efficiency two-phase cooling
The OptiCool system operates near the vaporization point of the refrigerant, where its heat capacity is by far the greatest. As the cool liquid refrigerant flows through the heat exchangers, it absorbs the heat and vaporizes into a gas. At the pump, external heat rejection takes the heat out of the gas and condenses it back into a liquid. Two-phase cooling refers to the mix of liquid and gas phases of the refrigerant in the system.
Because of the enormous heat capacity at the vaporization point, very little refrigerant is needed to absorb a lot of heat. The refrigerant flow rate is measured in gallons per hour, instead of gallons per minute for chilled water systems.
Two-phase cooling exploits physics and thermodynamics to do the heavy lifting. It eliminates the need for power-intensive compressors and expansion valves typically used in cooling systems. Power consumption is 90% less than an air-cooled system of a similar capacity.
Advantages of 2-phase refrigerant cooling
- Leverages latent heat of vaporization for enormous heat capacity
- Higher efficiency than air, water, or single-phase refrigerant cooling
- Much lower refrigerant flow rate and pump power
- Simple, elegant design results in high reliability and low maintenance cooling system
