Things have changed. Sunlights are now used to make ice instead of being used to melt the ice. A prototyped solar icemaker has been created by a team of engineering students from San Jose State University.
The solar icemaker is an eco-friendly device, which has zero carbon footprint. And some more it doesn’t need electricity to keep the ice cool, which is super handy for places like a developing country or disaster zone where electricity is unreachable.
The solar-powered ice maker uses a refrigerant liquid which evaporates when exposed to the sun. The vapor then travels through pipes that come into contact with an absorbent material which cools when the sun goes down. When this absorbent material reaches the 104°F, the refrigerant turns back into a liquid, which its temperature then drops below the freezing point due to pressure difference. When some water is added to the exterior of the evaporator, then ice will form.
The solar ice maker needs no electricity, uses only solar energy to produce ice and it has no moving parts. It’s capable of making 14 pounds of ice per day, which is more than enough for average Joe during their hot summer’s barbecue session.
The device is definitely a super handy one for those remote areas which are always exposed to the hot sun, and where those people desperately want some ice to cook themselves down. Currently, it’s still a prototype of the engineering students. Hope they could get it ready by next summer.
via [dvice]
August 30th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
B.S. That is all. Move along, nothing to see here.
This is based on an “Urban Myth”, that you can use high heat to set-up a huge ‘thermal difference’ and literally “suck” the heat from one object to another, thus cooling one of them drastically and rapidly. This has been disproved on a number of occasions by Universities, Think Tanks, Research Labs, hell, even the Discovery Channel show “Mythbusters” tackled the question. ALL come up with the same answer — B.S.
The above referenced “Team”, in fact, doesn’t exist, it’s a hoax, or a joke at the very least. I know. I’m an Assistant to the Dean of Engineering at San Jose…
August 30th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Yeah, its as ridiculous as those mythical refrigerators that are powered by propane.
How can something use heat to make things cold?
http://home.howstuffworks.com/refrigerator5.htm
Seems counterintuitive, but its thats science for you.
August 30th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Hmmmm….evaporator and pressure difference? Um, that’s how normal ACs work, ScienceGal. Cool a hot liquid at high pressure, let it evaporate at lower temperate, and the temp drops. I’m not sure the description is great, but the university’s site corroborates the article.
Science gal: prove your claim.
I can’t find a mythbuster’s episode that matches your description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MythBusters_episodes
and the team site is here:
http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/jrhee/solar/people.htm
ON the SJSU website.
You should be here:
http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/about/deans-staff#wei
ScienceGal (Susan Maples??) or you just lost ALL credibility. You can get to this site EASILY from the SJSU home page.
September 19th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I bet this could somehow be combined with the IceBear air conditioning unit so that you could cool your house more efficiently.
http://www.ice-energy.com/
January 21st, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Sci Gal, Ck out Codys link, It does work just like the RV Propane, or Electrical heated element, 12v and 110 v in the Made for rv fridge. Science …hum, maybe you should consider another field…
May 31st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Does anyone know where I can get the plans to build one?
June 9th, 2010 at 12:13 pm
I’m sure it works because the one we built has been dropping 10 lb. blocks of ice at my friends survival retreat for close to a year…There are plans(guidelines) in the “Evil Genius” series of books…tweak intelligently and ice shall be yours…