Spray cooling system takes the heat out of data centres

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Costs associated with running data centres could be reduced by spraying non-conductive fluids onto CPUs, scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore have found.

Close up of the spray cooling over the server racks within the prototype
Close up of the spray cooling over the server racks within the prototype - NTU Singapore

The more sustainable method for cooling down servers in data centres could reduce energy costs and carbon footprint by up to 26 per cent, they claim.

Data centres in Singapore account for seven per cent of the nation’s total electricity consumption and the demand for cloud computing is increasing.

The hottest component in a data centre server is the central processing unit (CPU), which requires a dedicated air-cooled heatsink.
When servers are stacked together in a rack vertically, they produce a substantial amount of heat, so cold air is drawn in to cool the server and hot air is then expelled to the surroundings.

The new method developed by NTU scientists uses a spray of non-conductive fluids to cool the CPU directly without a heatsink, utilising a combination of highly efficient heat removal mechanisms such as evaporation and boiling.

The gases and excess fluids are then collected in an enclosed system, condensed into liquid at tropical ambient temperatures (around 30oC) and recirculated back into the system for reuse.

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data centres