Cooling Solutions

A review of various cooling systems and their operational characteristics

Photo of an anti miner immersed in SLIC dielectric coolant for cooling solutions used in crypto and blockchain applications
two men working in a data center. one man is explaining to the other how single-phase liquid immersion cooling has a certain technique called SLIC open bath cooling.
Photo of immersed servers using single-phase liquid immersion cooling. SLIC applications have little to no noise. Contact Engineered Fluids for more cooling solutions for your electronics

Single-phase Fluid Immersion Cooling (SLIC)

Electronics are fully immersed in dielectric liquid coolant. Cools the server through low pressure circulation of coolant around servers, dumping waste heat using fluid-to-fluid or fluid-to-air heat exchangers. Requires coolant infrastructure and can use an open or sealed containment system.

No fans are required! – Just a low pressure (2-5psi) flow of BitCool through off the shelf air-cooled miners is more than enough to cool them without fans

Very high miner density – up to 144 miners in a single SLIC Tank

Open bath cooling – No vapors, no smell, and no problems!

Biodegradable and clean!

photo of engineered fluids SLIC equipment

Typical Air-Cooled Infrastructure

Air-Cooling requires multiple systems and multiple redundancies all delivered at great cost of capital and maintenance.

These cooling fans can use up to 30% of the all the power consumed by miners.

A/C & Water chilling units, compressors, and associated fans use about 40% of power in the typical mine or Data Center.

Hot and cold aisles and cooling infrastructure take up more than 1/2 of available floorspace!

Photo of a 3D illustration of a data center showing how hot and cold air flows through it.
Photo of a 3D illustration of a data center showing how hot and cold air flows through it.
Photo of a cold plate used in single-phase liquid immersion cooling applications
Engineered Fluids SLIC Equipment
Photo of electronic equipment with arrows showing where the fluid enters and heat exits.

Cold Plates

AKA – “Direct-to-Chip” / “Fluid-to-Chip” / “Water-to-Chip” / “Spot-Cooling”

Indirect cooling of devices using chip-specific, fluid-cooled heat exchangers mounted on each chip. Cools the chips through closed loop circulation of high-pressure water through cold plates, dumping waste heat using fluid-to-fluid, fluid-to-air heat exchangers. Requires water cooling infrastructure to the rack, internal server plumbing, CRAC units, and fans.

  • Every board & chip layout requires a custom plumbing and cold plate design.

  • Cold plates are micro-filters and fail due to fouling from bio slime other contaminants.

  • Incoming water manifold pressures can exceed 200psi, requiring water plumbing rated at 1000psi per ASHRE.

  • Requires very expensive dripless connectors to prevent high pressure water failure and intrusion.

Photo of a data center tower used in single-phase liquid immersion cooling.
Photo of illustration showing the different parts that make up a data center and showing how the heat and cold flows through the SLIC systems

Back of Rack Water Cooled Radiators

Adds water filled air-cooling radiators to the back of the rack. Cools the miners through closed loop circulation of chilled water through radiators, dumping waste heat using fluid-to-fluid or fluid-to-air heat exchangers. Requires water cooling infrastructure to each rack and fans are required on both the servers and the back of rack radiator. This is in addition to the air-cooling infrastructure already in place.

  • Requires chilled water plumbed into each individual rack.

  • Servers still have all their fans operating.

  • Add even more fans at the back every rack.

  • Still need the same air-cooling infrastructure.

Photo of a server using single-phase liquid immersion cooling for the cooling of its internal system

2-phase Immersion Cooling (2PIC)

Miners are fully immersed in low-temp boiling fluoroketone (halogenated fluids). Cools the server through vaporization of fluid by hot electronics. Heat is removed by recondensing the vaporized coolant with gas-to-water heat exchangers, dumping waste heat using fluid-to-fluid or fluid-to-air heat exchangers. Requires water cooling infrastructure to the rack, vapor containment, and pressurized sealed system.

  • Requires chilled water plumbed into each tank for the vapor to be cooled through a gas to fluid condenser.

  • Fluid is vaporized by the heat of the electronics. Closed system is required to prevent the coolant from dispersing and evaporating.

  • The boiling action of the coolant creates micro-cavitation which actually erodes the heated metals in the device destroying it and contaminating the coolant with metallic particles making the coolant conductive.