Electronic cooling using an automatic energy transport device based on thermomagnetic effect

Liquid cooling for thermal management has been widely applied in electronic cooling. The use of mechanical pumps often leads to poor reliability, high energy consumption and other problems. This paper presents a practical design of liquid cooling system by mean of thermomagnetic effect of magnetic fluids. The effects of several structure and operation factors on the system performance are also discussed. Such a device utilizes an earth magnet and the waste heat generated from a chip or other sources to maintain the flow of working fluid which transfers heat to a far end for dissipation. In the present cooling device, no additional energy other than the waste heat dissipated is consumed for driving the cooling system and the device can be considered as completely self-powered. Application of such a cooling system to a hot chip results in an obvious temperature drop of the chip surface. As the heat load increases, a larger heat dissipation rate can be realized due to a stronger thermomagnetic convection, which indicates a self-regulating feature of such devices.

Research highlights
► Automatic electronic cooling has been realized by means of thermomagnetic effect.
► Application of the cooling system to a hot chip results in an obvious surface temperature drop.
► The system possesses a self-regulating feature of cooling performance.