TY - JOUR

T1 - Mesoporous silica gels for waste heat recovery and adsorption cooling of Big Data Centers

AU - Cherpakova, A. V.

AU - Solovyeva, M. V.

AU - Grekova, A. D.

AU - Aristov, Yu I.

AU - Gordeeva, L. G.

N1 - This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation within the framework of the state assignment of the Institute of Catalysis, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (project FWUR-2024-0036).

PY - 2025/2/1

Y1 - 2025/2/1

N2 - With the rise of intensive computing, the power consumption of big data centers (BDCs) has increased significantly, with 40 % being spent on cooling. This requires the development of energy-efficient technologies for cooling BDC components. Adsorption Cooling (AC) is an environmentally friendly technology that can utilize BDC waste heat to cool their components. However, the ultra-low temperature level (45–60°С) of this heat requires the search for new advanced adsorbents specialized for these harsh conditions, which is the aim of this study. Firstly, the demands for adsorbent sorption properties are formulated; the water adsorption equilibrium is compared for commercially available mesoporous silicas (pore sizes ranging from 2 to 8 nm) to select the most promising adsorbent for this cycle. At a heat rejection temperature of 30 °C, the mesoporous silica with 4.6 nm pores produces cold at T = 25 °C, sufficient for cooling BDC, with water uptake of 0.44–0.47 gH2O/gads, and can be regenerated at 50–60 °C. The main performance indexes of the cycle are assessed: the Coefficient of Performance of 0.86 and Specific Cooling Power of 0.7–3.1 kW/kg. This provides a solid foundation for the designing a compact energy-saving adsorption unit for waste heat recovery and BDCs cooling using this commercially available and cost-effective adsorbent.

AB - With the rise of intensive computing, the power consumption of big data centers (BDCs) has increased significantly, with 40 % being spent on cooling. This requires the development of energy-efficient technologies for cooling BDC components. Adsorption Cooling (AC) is an environmentally friendly technology that can utilize BDC waste heat to cool their components. However, the ultra-low temperature level (45–60°С) of this heat requires the search for new advanced adsorbents specialized for these harsh conditions, which is the aim of this study. Firstly, the demands for adsorbent sorption properties are formulated; the water adsorption equilibrium is compared for commercially available mesoporous silicas (pore sizes ranging from 2 to 8 nm) to select the most promising adsorbent for this cycle. At a heat rejection temperature of 30 °C, the mesoporous silica with 4.6 nm pores produces cold at T = 25 °C, sufficient for cooling BDC, with water uptake of 0.44–0.47 gH2O/gads, and can be regenerated at 50–60 °C. The main performance indexes of the cycle are assessed: the Coefficient of Performance of 0.86 and Specific Cooling Power of 0.7–3.1 kW/kg. This provides a solid foundation for the designing a compact energy-saving adsorption unit for waste heat recovery and BDCs cooling using this commercially available and cost-effective adsorbent.

KW - Adsorption cooling

KW - Adsorption equilibrium and dynamics

KW - Big data center

KW - Mesoporous silica

KW - Ultra-low temperature heat

KW - Water vapor

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/9695356c-91c9-3137-900b-6a3af48a1c28/

UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/display.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85215545844&origin=inward&txGid=fa929dfa2f530f78eac97607f3c24471

U2 - 10.1016/j.energy.2025.134427

DO - 10.1016/j.energy.2025.134427

M3 - Article

VL - 316

JO - Energy

JF - Energy

SN - 0360-5442

M1 - 134427

ER -