sustainable data centers and energy conversion technologies · psi tobias rupp and thomas schmidt...

IBM Research - Zurich | Science & Technology

© 2016 IBM Corporation

Sustainable Data Centers and Energy Conversion Technologies

Bruno Michel, Mgr. Smart System Integration, IBM Research – Zurich, Switzerland

Member US National Academy of Engineering and Member IBM Academy of Technology

https://www.zurich.ibm.com/st/ https://www.zurich.ibm.com/st/smartsystem/

https://www.zurich.ibm.com/st/

https://www.zurich.ibm.com/st/smartsystem/


IBM Research – Zurich – Smart System Integration – Sustainable data centers and energy conversion technologies

Sustainable generation

Electricity and heatFresh water scarcity

Renewable heating and cooling

High performance

microchannel

coolers

Growth in

Cloud and Big

Data

Heat exchanger

Pump

Underfloor

heatingEconomic value of heat reduces datacenter total

cost of ownership by 50-70% lower energy cost

60°C

65°C

>700 W/cm2

Zero-emissiondatacenter

High-concentration PV/thermal

Adsorptionheat pump

Membrane distillationdesalination

Electrochemical redox energy conversion

Smarter Energy: Impact Outside of ICT Industry

Bruno Michel, [email protected] 2



3 Bruno Michel, [email protected]

High Concentration PV/thermal (HCPVT) Multigeneration

HCPVT system captures >80% of solar

energy content with one installation

• Solar provisioning of electricity and heat today typically employs

two separate power stations → doubled cost

• Current solar systems capture <35% of incoming solar irradiation

→ >65% waste



4

High Concentration PV/thermal (HCPVT) Multigeneration

Bruno Michel, [email protected]



Transport dynamicsAdsorbents

Refrigerants

Silica gel Zeolite

Activatedcarbon

Alumino-phosphates

MOFs Salt composites

Improve adsorption capacity

Improve dynamic utilization

Select for application

Heat Driven Heat Pumps or Adsorption Chillers

5

Name FormulaBoiling point

[°C]

Latent heat

[kJ/kg]

Latent heat density

[kJ/m3]

Water H2O 100 2 258 2 163

Methanol CH3OH 65 508 872

Ammonia NH3 -34 1 368 932

Sulphur dioxide SO2 -10 605 534



6

Physical modeling of heat &

mass transport with sorption

phenomena, understand

basic physics of system

Location-specific modeling of solar thermal and waste heat

driven cooling system, define CAPEX (cost) and OPEX (el.

energy cons.) 12

3

Characterization via vapor sorption isotherms and

adsorbate diffusion coefficient measurements,

1600 W/kg specific cooling power (>8x higher)

4

Adsorbent assembly for optimized heat &

mass transport rates, 10x faster cycling

5

In situ transient thermography and

cooling power characterization

10% higher COP

6

Test facility for 1 kW heat ex-

changer characterization,

3x lower cost lower driving T 7

0.5 mm 100 µm

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

Relative pressure

Ma

ss u

pta

ke

[%

] M

ass u

pta

ke [%

]

Relative pressure

Domestic hot water

150°C | 60°C | 12°C

Space heating

80°C | 40°C | 12°C

Air-conditioning

60°C | 30°C | 18°C

Summary of Expertise


Synthesis of adsorbents with tailored appli-

cation-specific properties for hot climates



7

Summary: Breakthrough Innovations

Reuse ICT heat for heating and cooling Zero-emission datacenter

– Technology lead >10x lower convective thermal resistance than in energy industry

Convert heat from Solar HCPVT and datacenters into cooling

– Needs high efficiency HCPVT receiver and district cooling

– Heat driven heat pump 10x better due to lower conductive resistance and better isotherm

Innovation in heat pumps

– Leading characterization of sorption dynamics and thermal/mass transport resistance

– Steeper sorption isotherm optimized for necessary temperature/pressure window

– Better thermal contact for faster cycling and >10x higher overall SCP

– Heat pump with high exergetic efficiency Thermal Transformer

Microchannel flow boiling to be used in low grade heat steam engines

– Rankine cycle with limited efficiency Should use near isothermal expander

Common part: Massively reduced convective and conductive heat transfer




Thank you very much for your kind Attention!

Acknowledgement

Ingmar Meijer, Patrick Ruch, Jens Ammann, Sarmenio Saliva, Thomas Brunschwiler, Stephan Paredes,

Werner Escher, Yassir Madhour, Jeff Ong, Gerd Schlottig and many more for Heatpump, Aquasar and

SuperMUC design and build

Sebastian Gerke, Rahel Straessle, Arvind Sridhar, Ismael Faro, Yuksel Temiz, Neil Ebejer, Theodore G van

Kessel, Keiji Matsumoto, Emanuel Loertscher, Frank Libsch, Hyung-Min Lee, John Knickerbocker, Jonas

Weiss, Jonathan E Proesel, Kang-Wook Lee, Mehmet Soyuer, Minhua Lu, Mounir Meghelli, Norma E Sosa

cortes, Paul S Andry, Roy Yu, Shriya Kumar, Sufi Zafar, Teodor K Todorov, Yves Martin …. and many more

PSI Tobias Rupp and Thomas Schmidt

HSR Paul Gantenbein, Matthias Rommel

ETH Aldo Steinfeld, Max Schmitz, Nicolai Wiik, Severin Zimmermann, Adrian Renfer, Manish Tiwari, Ozgur

Ozsun, Dimos Poulikakos

EPFL Yassir Madhour, John Thome, and Yussuf Leblebici

Funding: IBM FOAK Program, IBM Research, CCEM Aquasar project, Nanotera CMOSAIC project, SNF

Sinergia project REPCOOL, NRP 70 project THRIVE, EUFP7 project CarrICool, EUFP7 project

HyperConnect, DARPA IceCool, KTI / DSolar.

Bruno Michel, [email protected] 8

See Conference Paper: Ruch et al., Sustainable data centers

and energy conversion technologies (2017).

sustainable data centers and energy conversion technologies · psi tobias rupp and thomas schmidt...

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