3 ms·
>However it's still interesting because a lot of refrigeration uses a compressor which requires a lot of voltage (and current) to start up. It might be like pel
by midoridensha 4y ago
>However it's still interesting because a lot of refrigeration uses a compressor which requires a lot of voltage (and current) to start up. It might be like peltier coolers which are solid state, but unfortunately not very efficient and don't cool much in practical terms. (search thermoelectric coolers or peltier)
This is exactly why it's BS: a compressor requires high(er) voltage to start and run, and Peltier coolers can run on 5V USB outlets. However, compressor-based cooling is FAR more efficient than Peltiers, which are infamously inefficient. Voltage really doesn't tell you anything. The problem is that journalists have no idea what a Volt is.
- skedaddle 4y agoThey are not comparing to compression cycle efficiencies. They are comparing ionocaloric results to other caloric cooling techniques. Electrocaloric cooling requires an E field of hundreds or thousands of volts per cm to cool a material 15K or so, so it's remarkable that ionocaloric cooling can be driven by a weak field. They never imply that it is more power efficient than every other cooling technique -- that idea was injected upthread. It does take energy to create and sustain such a strong field. But in any case, fields that strong break polymers and other materials (air) and are harder to work with generally. EC/MC cooling devices are expensive and inefficient as a result. > journalists have no idea what a Volt is Institutional science communication doesn't work like that. Bylines aside, these articles are an agglomeration of what the researchers, communication team, grant managers, lab directors, and DOE bureaucrats want to say.