Last may, the Seattle start-up Nanocel won the University of Washington’s annual business plan competition. Now the company — founded by UW mechanical engineering PhD student Dustin Miller and recent UW MBA grad Daniel Rossi — is gearing up for a big 2010. Their planned first products — affordable fluid-based cooling systems for computer chips — will fill a large void in the market, the inventors say. Nanocel’s technology uses a combination of microfluidics and novel plastic materials to cool devices more cheaply than other liquid-based systems and more efficiently than cooling fans. The products use thousands to millions of very thin (between one and 100 micrometers wide) vessels to circulate tiny amounts of liquid in close contact with the computer chips or other device components prone to overheating. Nanocel is not the first to think of replacing fans with liquid, but its technology is the first to combine plastics with microfluidics to create a heat sink, Miller says.<\/p>\n
Nanocel is eco-friendly, he adds, in that it could save vast amounts of energy over current air-based cooling methods. Two of the biggest problems in the computer industry are keeping large server farms from overheating and extending battery life in laptops and other portable electronics. “We are currently using over 3% of the nation’s energy on cooling the Internet,” Miller says. Industry calculations say that fluid-based cooling could cut that energy use in half. “That’s a staggering number,” he points out. Potential partners and customers mainly include computer chip manufacturers and designers, but the inventors also are talking with companies that make gaming consoles, servers, and hardware. “There are tons of shelf-ready products that can’t go to market because they’re too hot,” Rossi says. Fans aren’t powerful enough to cool them down, and liquid technologies are too pricey. On an individual scale, a cooling technology that uses less energy will lead to longer battery life, reducing energy usage and keeping more batteries out of landfills. “This can have a real impact, not only at the country level but also at the consumer level,” Miller says. Nanocel is working out a licensing deal with UW’s TTO. “We’re excited about this technology,” says Jim Roberts, UW TechTransfer’s business development officer. “We think it has many applications. They’ve got all the right ingredients to be a successful company.”<\/p>\n