I-Corps: A Lightweight, Low-Cost, Liquid-Metal Cooling Vest for Prolonged Cooling

I-Corps：一款轻质、低成本的液态金属冷却背心，可实现长时间冷却

• 批准号: 2246456
• 负责人: Fernando Gómez-Baquero
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-01-01 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2246456&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Lightweight; Low; Cost; Liquid

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a personal cooling system for high-heat work environments such as shipyards, foundries, boiler workshops, and mining and construction sites where workers are exposed to heat exhaustion. Additional potential markets exist in medical, sports, emergency response, military, and animal care fields. The product will compete in the global personal cooling garment market. This I-Corps project is based on the development of a conduction-based, cooling cycle technology using highly thermally conductive fluidic metal, gallium alloy. Gallium alloy is liquid at room temperature and is commonly known as liquid metal (LM). Due to its fluidic nature, LM can be pumped into a microfluidic channel using a low-power pump. Also, LM is 28 times more conductive (16.5W/m·K) than water, which helps absorb heat in a second by conduction, unlike the convection-based cooling cycle. Conventional refrigeration cooling cycles require a high power-consuming compressor to reduce heat transfer time. Low power conduction-based heat transfer along with microfluidic LM flows allow the LM to be used as the primary coolant in the novel personal cooling system. The outcome is a lightweight, low-power, low-cost, LM wearable personal cooling system that can provide day-long high cooling.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该 I-Corps 项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是为高热工作环境（例如造船厂、铸造厂、锅炉车间以及工人暴露在热衰竭中的采矿和建筑工地）开发个人冷却系统。该产品将在全球个人冷却服装市场上展开竞争，该项目基于基于传导的冷却循环技术的开发。导热流体金属，镓合金。镓合金在室温下是液体，通常被称为液态金属（LM），由于其流体性质，LM可以使用低功率泵泵入微流体通道中，并且LM是28倍。比水更导热（16.5W/m·K），这有助于通过传导在一秒钟内吸收热量，这与传统的基于对流的制冷循环需要高功耗的压缩机来减少热量。基于低功率传导的热传递和微流体 LM 流使得 LM 可以用作新型个人冷却系统中的主要冷却剂，从而产生轻质、低功耗、低成本的 LM 可穿戴个人产品。能够提供全天高温冷却的冷却系统。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。