Loop heat pipe for waste heat recovery in data centres

Data Centres (DC) consume 1.1–1.5% of the world's total energy and have one of the fastest-growing carbon footprints. The EU aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% and improve energy efficiency by 32.5% by 2030.

Almost 100% of the energy consumed by a DC server is converted to heat, which is dumped into the environment surrounding a DC.

Integration of two-phase cooling solutions designed around waste heat recovery is required to improve DC energy efficiency and performance.An attractive two-phase solution for cooling and waste heat recovery for DCs is loop heat pipes (LHP). A LHP is a highly-efficient heat transportation device.

It enables long-distance, low-thermal resistance transport of thermal energy by utilising the latent heat associated with phase change and requires no energy for operation. The novel objectives for this Fellowship are:(i) Development of an original multi-scale porous structure. This structure will create a high-performance fluid transport and evaporative surface at the core of the LHP.

It will be fabricated by electrodeposition of copper into a close packing of different sized polymer spheres.

The packing arrangement will be guided by numerical modelling and an optimisation algorithm.(ii) Fabrication of a high-performance LHP that is beyond the current state-of-the-art to dissipate and transport the necessary power of next-generation integrated circuits for DC applications.(iii) Characterisation of LHP and waste heat recovery technologies to increase DC performance while reducing carbon emissions.

The developed LHP will be tested with Thermoelectric Generator technology to provide direct electrical generation at the server level.The outcomes of this project are the development of innovative waste heat transportation and conversion solutions for DC applications to increase performance and efficiency while reducing their carbon footprint.

The Persoons group and I have the combined tools and expertise to achieve this.