MIT scientists, including one of Indian origin, develop a cooling device that works without electricity

MIT scientists, including one of Indian origin, develop a cooling device that operates without electricity.

MIT scientists, including one of Indian origin, have developed a cooling device that can store food and medicine in hot, isolated places without electricity or fossils. energy generated by the fuel. The system allows the emission of heat in the mid-infrared range that can directly cross the atmosphere and radiate in the cold of space, crossing the gases that act as a greenhouse, researchers said. To prevent overheating in direct sunlight, a small metal band hanging over the camera blocks direct sunlight.

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The system, described in the journal Nature Communications, could theoretically provide cooling up to 20 degrees Celsius below ambient temperature in a place like Boston, the researchers said. Until now, during their first validation tests, they reached a cooling of six degrees Celsius. Other groups have attempted to design pbadive heat-emitting cooling systems in the form of average infrared light wavelengths, but these systems are based on sophisticated complex photonic devices that can be expensive to manufacture. and are not readily available for widespread use. The devices are complex because they are designed to reflect almost perfectly all the wavelengths of sunlight and to emit radiation in the mid-infrared range, for the most part. This combination of selective reflectivity and emissivity requires a multilayer material in which the thickness of the layers is controlled to a nanoscale precision.

"We built the configuration and performed outdoor experiments on a MIT roof. This has been done with very simple materials "and has clearly demonstrated the effectiveness of the system," said Bikram Bhatia, a researcher at the Mbadachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States. Humidity in the atmosphere, which can block some of the infrared emissions in the air, is a limiting factor for the system. In a place like Boston, near the ocean and relatively wet, this limits the total amount of cooling that can be achieved, limiting it to about 20 degrees Celsius, researchers said. However, in drier deserts or arid environments around the world, the maximum cooling that could be achieved could actually be much higher, up to 40 degrees Celsius, they said. Although most research on radiative cooling has focused on larger systems that can cool rooms or entire buildings, this approach is more localized, said Evelyn Wang, a professor at MIT. "This would be useful for refrigeration applications, such as food storage or vaccines," she said.