this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
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A new cooling technology freezes food without warming the climate (www.anthropocenemagazine.org)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) by RodgeGrabTheCat@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world
63 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Imaging if this technology could cool a data centre.

Edit: I was not involved in this project. You are wasting your time asking me questions.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I don't think shape change materials are all that efficient. The problem being is you still need some mechanism to compress the material again, which obviously uses energy. As you say their main advantage is that they don't use traditional refrigerants. But the trade-off for that is that they are mechanically more complicated and probably for any given amount of cooling will require more electricity.

You can trade those off with renewable energy sources of course so it may still be worth it but technically they are worse efficiency than traditional vacuum pumps.

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Some sources claim much higher efficiency. This makes sense to me since you are not limited by your coolant's properties so much and don't have to maintain pressure. But I can't do in depth research for you.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

What sources?

The article doesn't list any. All it says is they reached a cooling temperature of -12°C, but has no information on the energy used to achieve that.

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Google "elastocaloric heat pump efficiency" thats the technical term.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 43 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

I'm asking what saurce you have that says that they are more efficient than refrigeration systems because everything I find says the opposite.