The rapid growth of cloud technology, edge computing, large scale internet of things and AI has increased the demand of data processing centers significantly. There is ever more challenging requirements of capacity and energy efficiency for data processing centers, along with growing number of IT equipment and servers. It is projected that air cooling will no longer be able to cope with stringent requirement of future national standard energy efficiency. Liquid cooling will dominate the market for data processing centers and the selection of cooling media is pivotal.
In response to the current trend, the research team of Glacier Coolant developed the modified fluorinated liquid coolant, targeting systems demanding high efficiency cooling such as data processing centers, heating elements and electrical chips. Modified Glacier Fluorinated Liquid is transparent, tasteless, non-toxic, safe and un-dissoluble in water. It is thermally stable and environmentally friendly.
The boiling point of Modified Glacier Fluorinated Liquid is moderate and (~50℃) and the latent heat is around 121.7 kJ/kg. By evaporating fluorinated liquid coolant which immerses data processing centers, the heat is taken away from the facilities. It eliminates the use of air conditioning and the energy efficiency is really high. The power usage effectiveness (PUE) is below 1.1, saving more than 85% power consumption compared to air conditioning. It also has very high insulation property against electric conduction. Its dielectric strength up to 55 kV and therefore it will not damage electrical instrumentation. It is chemically inert with no ignition and flashing points, non-combustible and non-explosive. Modified Glacier Fluorinated Liquid gas excellent thermal conductivity, good flowability and system compatibility. The Ozone Depletion Potential is 0 and the global warming potential is 7 making it suitable for many applications. Apart from data processing center, it is also applied in power inverter for high speed rails, hydrogen fuel cell and electrical battery vehicles, semi-conductor equipment cooling, wind power, nuclear, ultra-high voltage power gird and military radar systems.
A well-known research institution conducted a few measurements on Modified Glacier Fluorinated Liquid in our R&D center in April, 2021 and the results were illustrated in the table in below. All the figures meet the requirements for use.
Table.1 Physical properties of Modified Glacier Fluorinated Liquid
As shown in Figure.1, CPU are placed in the cooling box of fluorinated liquid immersion cooling system where heat of elements of CPU is dissipated. When servers are in operation, heat generated by the server’s elements boils fluorinated liquid due to its low boiling point. The evaporated coolant is condensed when it contacts with tubes of condenser located above CPU. The condensed fluorinated liquid is re-utilized, continuously cooling CPU elements.
Figure.1 Process Flow Diagram of Fluorinated Liquid Immersion Cooling System for Data Processing Center
It saves more than 85% of power consumption by making direct contact between the elements of data processing system and Modified Glacier Fluorinated Liquid to achieve effective cooling. The system configuration is simple, enabling compact server assembly, which saves space. The water and coolant consumption is relatively low with only internal recirculation, saving significant OPEX.