Scientists create advanced ice box without a compressor

Researchers at Johns Hopkins and Samsung have made significant advancements in the field of cooling technology with the development of a new thermoelectric material named CHESS. This nano-engineered material has demonstrated a remarkable efficiency in material-level cooling, surpassing existing alternatives and offering promising applications for solid-state refrigeration technology. Traditional methods of commercial refrigeration and air conditioning involve the use of compressors that circulate refrigerant chemicals through a cooling system. However, these methods are not environmentally friendly, energy-intensive, and cumbersome at large scales.

Thermoelectric cooling, on the other hand, presents a different approach by passing an electric current through specialized semiconductor materials. Although thermoelectric cooling has been utilized in various consumer products such as wine coolers and mini-fridges, it has been limited by factors like its narrow ambient temperature range, lower cooling capacity, and challenges in high-volume semiconductor manufacturing compatibility.

Through collaborative efforts between scientists at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and Samsung Research engineers, thin-film thermoelectric materials have been developed to enhance material-level thermoelectric performance significantly. The successful outcomes of this research have been detailed in a scientific paper published in Nature Communications titled “Nano-engineered thin-film thermoelectric materials enable practical solid-state refrigeration.”

The newly developed technology, CHESS – short for controlled hierarchically engineered superlattice structures, initially designed for national security applications, has proven its efficiency in applications like cooling engine components and chips. Notably, it has been utilized to provide cooling in medical prosthetics. According to the researchers, the thin-film thermoelectric components using CHESS have demonstrated a nearly 100% improvement in thermoelectric cooling efficiency at room temperature compared to conventional materials. When integrated into thermoelectric modules, the overall efficiency enhancement reaches around 70%.

Utilizing metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), a scalable and industrial process, the production of CHESS thin-film materials for commercial purposes is seen as a viable and straightforward initiative that is already in progress. Beyond refrigeration applications, CHESS materials show promise in converting temperature differentials, such as body heat, into useful power. This capability opens up possibilities for scalable energy-harvesting technologies across various domains, including computers, prosthetics, spacecraft, and more, thereby revolutionizing the realm of thermoelectric devices with their compact, efficient, and versatile nature.