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The "Cool Brick" Can Cool Off an Entire Room Using Nothing But Water 183

Posted by samzenpus from the jeeping-it-cool dept.
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.
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The "Cool Brick" Can Cool Off an Entire Room Using Nothing But Water More

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

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  • I would think (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:15AM (#48956925)

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

    • Re:I would think (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Slugster ( 635830 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @06:58AM (#48957227)
      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).

      • If you have dry summers and wet winters, reservoirs supply enough water for the summer.

        • Re:I would think (Score:4, Insightful)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @08:47AM (#48957671) Journal

          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.
             

        • Depends on the kind of desert and how much money you have, Australia is largely desert, much of it less than 500 meters above sea level, which is why you can drill a hole almost anywhere and find water in abundance (although it said the pressure has been dropping over the last century). That's how these giant cattle stations survive, the land is arid scrub and acacia trees, they drill a bunch of bore holes for watering stations and just turn the cattle loose. A year later they round up as many as they can f

      • Re:I would think (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @07:18AM (#48957277)
        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.

  • Hot, dry climates such as deserts, (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:16AM (#48956927)

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

    • Obviously the solution is to cover the house with a large cupola, with solar powered freezing, that would condensate the evaporated water and recover it in a container so it can be reused by the 3d printed walls.

  • Nice in principle but fails at higher temperatures (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ZombieEngineer ( 738752 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:17AM (#48956935)

    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

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rioki ( 1328185 )

      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 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?

      • Re:Nice in principle but fails at higher temperatu (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2015 @06:53AM (#48957207)

        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.

        • I believe GP is proposing that you use a swamp cooler to chill one channel of outside air. Then run it past another channel of outside air via a heat exchanger. The net result would be outside air chilled by the same amount as the swamp cooler, but without the added humidity. In fact you could do this multiple times for extremely hot air (a swamp cooler will only lower the air temp by about 15-20 F, which if the outside temperature is 100+ F leaves the air at a still-uncomfortable 80+ F).
      • No, they are describing a good old-fashioned evaporative cooler. We used to call then swamp coolers [wikipedia.org]. 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.

        • No, they are describing a good old-fashioned evaporative cooler. We used to call then swamp coolers.

          Also no. The GP is describing a good old-fashioned evaporative cooler coupled to an air to air heat exchanger. The reason we don't do what they suggest is that it takes up a lot of space.

      • There are two main types of air-conditioner, the most common type of ac unit works like your fridge, it has a compressor, the gas is compressed outside the fridge, compression heats it up and it is cooled back down to room temperature by the radiator at the back, the gas is then allowed to expand again inside the fridge, the drop in pressure causes the gas to re-absorb the heat lost in the external radiator. Metaphorically the heat is "pumped out" of the fridge.

        OTOH an evaporative cooler works because th

    • 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.

      Now I'm curious. For the math/HVAC nerds among us, how much of a humidity increase are you looking at from evaporative cooling? Say 33C with 20% humidity to 23C as the OP lays out, what would the resulting humidity be?

      • Now I'm curious. For the math/HVAC nerds among us, how much of a humidity increase are you looking at from evaporative cooling?

        I'm not a Math/HVAC nerd, despite getting an ASE certification in automotive HVAC, you don't actually need to know much of anything to get one, keep that in mind next time you go to get your car serviced by an ASE-certified repairman, all their certs are shit like that and their "master" certs just prove that you have a bunch of their worthless lower certs. But anyway, I've lived with a swamp cooler, and I'll never understand how all those people can swaddle themselves in cloth in the desert because on hot

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jbengt ( 874751 )
        60% +/- assuming an adiabatic process at near 100% efficiency, and no heat gain in the space to conteract the sensible cooling.

    • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nobuddy ( 952985 )

      >Evaporative cooling brings the air temperature down by increasing the humidity of the air.

      This statement is false. The air is cooled by the endothermic nature of evaporating of water. The humidity is a side effect.

    • The problem with a two-stage system is the dew point and the distinction between absolute and relative humidity. There are nice cool springs in northern Florida that pump out water at a brisk 72 degrees F. Jump in them and you will cool off rapidly. But they cannot cool anything below 72 F, and at 100% relative humidity that isn't pleasant. In a dry climate, you can use two-stage coolers to do all the work. In a wetter climate, you can use them to reduce the energy demand of regular air conditioners, but yo

  • mold? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:20AM (#48956941)

    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tshawkins ( 1239974 )

      Here in the philippines, water is often kept cool by storing it in porus pots, the water slowly seeps through the walls of the clay pot, and evaporates from the outside, there are no channels as its using the micro pore structure of the earthen ceramic pot. The evaporation lowers the temperature of the whole pot.

      • Here in the philippines, water is often kept cool by storing it in porus pots, the water slowly seeps through the walls of the clay pot, and evaporates from the outside, there are no channels as its using the micro pore structure of the earthen ceramic pot. The evaporation lowers the temperature of the whole pot.

        Yes, but I'd bet good money your granny taught you to let the pot dry before refilling, or at least every two or three refills, because if it stays damp all the time, things will grow in it. Clay pots also have a tendency to get broken and replaced every now and then.

        To do the same with this "cool brick" (dry your walls out completely), you're going to need to go without cooling for an extended period at the hottest time of the day, which is the time you most want cooling. Something of an intractable dilemm

    • Don't forget the minerals that will be left behind to clog the wall along with the mold. Locations that are dry enough for evaporative cooling to work are usually short of water, too, so this would be like a faucet continually running.

  • Wow. Maybe they should call it a swamp cooler. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Mal-2 ( 675116 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:26AM (#48956953) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • Re:Wow. Maybe they should call it a swamp cooler. (Score:5, Funny)

      by pitchpipe ( 708843 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:32AM (#48956979)
      But you just don't understand. This thing was fucking 3D PRINTED. Everything that is 3D printed is so cool it is downright cold. It'll just cool the room by sitting there not doing anything at all!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by paiute ( 550198 )
      You can say the same for a traditional air conditioner. Up in the high desert of the Great Basin, you build a swamp cooler into the ducted HVAC and cool your whole house with a tiny squirrel cage fan. The sound not right in your face.

    • Add Phoenix metro to this. Yeah, the evap cooler tech works somewhat in the spring and early summer. When the multi-month monsoon season hits, however, evap coolers are pretty much worthless.

      I'm also pretty sure that hard water deposits in these "bricks" would render them useless pretty quickly.

  • 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.

    • 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.

      Wait, what? Are you sure the ventilation is sufficient? Drying laundry indoors will increase the humidity, but if you actually get condensation and mold on surfaces, that's very bad for you and the building! If possible, at least limit the drying to bathroom or get a dedicated drier.

      • If your cloth is to wet to be dried indoors, then there is either something wrong with your washing machine or you wash an immense amount of cloth.

    • Maybe the miracle "Cool Brick" can also perform "Cold Fusion" . . . then you'd have your heat.

      Also, maybe we should try to 3D print a cure for Ebola? Anything 3D printed seems to have magical properties.

    • 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.

    • Easy. Just install something like this [bobvila.com] and something like this [honeywell.com] and you're set.

  • Water (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Neil Boekend ( 1854906 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @05:38AM (#48957007)

    Isn't water kinda expensive in deserts?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • There is an outfit I've read about that uses evaporation in adjacent tubes to produce a stream of cool, DRY air that you can send into a building. You can find them on YouTube if you search for "Coolerado".

      An evaporative cooler followed by an air to air heat exchanger is not a revolutionary idea. It's not even a bad idea, except that it only works on dry days and it takes up an awful lot of space.

  • Well.. maybe not useful in deserts, but in South Australia evaporative cooling is both popular and useful. Low average humidity in Summer, ready access to water - at least in the cities. So a system like this would work in South Australia - it'd probably be completely useless in other Australian States where the humidity in Summer is high. I'm guessing there are similar places to South Australia around the world though, so maybe there's also a market.

    But evaporative cooling systems are so cheap to build

  • Two problems (Score:4, Informative)

    by goodmanj ( 234846 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @07:31AM (#48957315)

    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".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by wbr1 ( 2538558 )
      That is why you include our (recurring revenue generating) 3d printed Smart Filter with Nano Surface Texture (tm). The Smart Filter (tm) filters the mineral content out of the water far better than reverse osmosis or activated charcoal and keeps your environmentally irresponsible smart Brick functioning like new!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by itzly ( 3699663 )

      water is scarce in the hot dry places where evaporative cooling works well.

      That's okay. Just 3D print some new water, as required.

  • you can replace the wood wool easily when it gets yucky. You may have an expensive problem with this "cool brick".
    Algae, fungie and who knows what else can grow when germs/spores in air get blown into moist and porous material and start growing there creating a stink.

    Unless this "cool brick" has some antibacterial properties, stuff will grow. And if one wants constantly present antibiotics around in a living environment is questionable.

    I wonder how this should work. Has this been tested for a longer period

    • In Arizona, we have a type of swamp cooler called a MasterCool which uses a single, big paper cooling pad [homedepot.com] instead of the shredded wood thing. Ours lasts for several years before needing replacement, and we have plenty of dissolved calcium in our water.

  • Converts nice dry, but hot air into moist but cool air. Then that moist cool air circulates and gets warm then you get a room full of hot moist air and the evaporator cooler stops working because the air is saturated. So over time it converts a livable room in which you can sweat and cool yourself into a hot moist room where sweating is impossible.

    Short term gain, long term pain.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tibit ( 1762298 )

      Of course you can then run a dehumidifier in the same room - because having one noisy machine in your room isn't enough. Of course, it's best to have two sets of circulating fans and a compressor. /s

  • In the hot dry climate, esp. a desert, you might not want to piss away your water cooling the (uninsulated) tent.
    You might be able to find a better use for the rare and life-supporting resource.

  • Because water is what you have a lot of in a "hot dry desert". Though I guess once people start dropping from Legionnaire's there'll be more water to go around those that are left.

  • Which works fine, but use water which is a problem in the desert.

  • If the Stanley tool people marketed it would it be Stanley Cool Brick?

    Get it? Ahh screw it. Get off my lawn!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Qzukk ( 229616 )

      Get it?

      I don't have space in my apartment for a large black obelisk just sitting around being cool. Can I lay it on its side and use it as a table?

  • The article says that the creators of this envision it as a structural element of buildings. Where you would have an entire wall made of this material that gets soaked with water to cool the space when it gets hot. I have not dealt with a swamp coolers but I have dealt with humidifiers quite a lot. The one thing that I have observed is that every part that gets wet grows a colony of who knows what pretty fast if it isn’t regularly cleaned. In a lot of systems you have a pad, which is frequently stru

    • Re:Seems potentially unsanitary (Score:4, Informative)

      by ledow ( 319597 ) on Monday February 02, 2015 @08:52AM (#48957701) Homepage

      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.

  • This would be great for deserts, because everyone knows that water is in abundant supply in desert environments.

  • Of course this needs to run on deionized water, and I certainly do hope that they have a robust, validated mold and fungus control solution for this thing.

  • there's a reason this 3000 year old technology was abandoned when a/c became cheap enough.

  • It's called a swamp cooler and apart from being printed in a 3D printer there is NOTHING new to see here.

    What's next? You going to 3D print a gun? Oh wait... Already done..

    3D print joint replacements? That doo.

    3D print...

    What's next, make it available for people who want to pay in BitCoin?

    What passes as advanced technology sometimes amazes me...

  • And you'll find exactly this thing, purchasable off-the-shelf, no 3-D printing needed....

                    mark

  • This is really nothing new, we have tons of swamp coolers that work on this principle in Colorado. The thing is you need a low humidity atmosphere for it to work to prevent humidity getting uncomfortably high and you need a plentiful water source because you're going to increase usage by several gallons per day per household in a zero percent humidity environment.

  • This "cool brick" looks like a $5 humidifier pad with funky abstract patterns etched on the sides.

  • must work for 3dprint.com as he only submits stories from them.. that or they are a DICE co.

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