Cooling Our Homes Without Electricity?
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- Опубліковано 9 січ 2023
- Exploring Electricity Free Cooling with Aerogel. Click here bit.ly/3UE9Ojv to improve your sleep fitness with Eight Sleep and get $200 off the Pod or $150 off the Pod Cover using my code MATT. Whether it’s to regulate the temperature of food, medicine, or people, we’ll always need some form of cooling tech to survive. We tend to turn to air conditioning to solve these problems, but that uses up a lot of electricity. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have an idea: stack the same cooling techniques we’ve been using for thousands of years by harnessing the power of aerogel. No power, no emissions…no problem?
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Do you think aerogel is going to make an impact on cooling systems? And would you want to retrofit your AC with one of these cooling panels? Click here bit.ly/3UE9Ojv to improve your sleep fitness with Eight Sleep and get $200 off the Pod or $150 off the Pod Cover using my code MATT.
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yanchal stored ice. it doesnt make it. the ice is transported from places where it drops below freezing at night
I've been following SHIELD and it is the way to go.
I would love to see if they could try to find a way to grow these similar to mycelium blocks
Hope its not too extremely flammable,
like the the exterior reliefs of the formerly inhabited Grendfell Tower
that burned down.
Other than that it sounds very friendly to the environment.
Can you talk about china's new red hydrogen brake through?
Also thoughts on cities using thirsty cement to reduce flooding.
As much as this sounds very promising, "Accessibility is everything" -- it won't become "the next norm" if nobody can buy it.
that's kinda what he said
Its for the rich
But if you’re NileRed you can make aerogel 😉
Maybe one day we’ll discover a cheaper material with similar properties. The tech is still pretty cool
Everything produced is always expensive when it's first introduced, after a few years, the price comes down, and everybody owns it....
9°C reduction in direct sunlight is impressive, but I think not impressive enough compared to other radiative coatings that require less effort to produce. Hard to imagine aerogel will ever be inexpensive in large continuous sheets. Other radiative coatings benefit from a plastic film over top of them, which insulates via air gap and also allows for easy cleaning and cheap replacement of the sky exposed surface. I didn't hear mention of a replaceable film over top of this coating and how that effects performance. I'll have to read the paper.
Edit: Apparently I was not paying attention to the video and totally missed the point. I didn't notice they're achieving their low temps by combining radiative cooling with evaporative cooling. That's less impressive and more finicky. Having a water permeable surface facing the sky is just asking for dust contamination to ruin reflectivity, and you need deionized water or you'll get mineral buildup. It takes energy to distill that water which is a continuous carbon emission required for operation. Good on them for experimenting but I have little hope in this.
What if it was used to add shade to the house by like a weird exoskeleton
Agree on all points. I did like the transparent aerogel in windows somewhat. But vacuum insulation is even more efficient than aerogel and doesn't require extra, super specialized materials. It does require some definite engineering and correct material use, but is significantly cheaper than making transparent aerogel.
I agree with all points as well but one thing I think Matt failed to recognize is the potential to produce these materials in high volumes in space via Starship delivered space factories. There's certainly good use cases for a super lightweight insulation material especially for future space, moon, and mars infrastructure.
@@justinw1765 or why not just use tripple layer gass filled one...no need to hassle with vacume windows ...can be made considerbly lighter...
@@Mr2Reviews idd...ur probably right those materials would be cheaper produce and easier on the moon or in space...just one small problem we need to send material and equippment up...and defy earhs gravity isent exactly cheap... using rockets its a cost of around atleast 20 000 USD to send 1kg of material on a standard Atlas V rocket...
..not exacly cost effective nor enviromental friendly, and not to mention the use of energy and material to produced to make the none reusable part of the rocket would outweght the saving by faar...
I built a passive solar cooling system for my shop (which is a steel construction). The system is very simple. I placed a second steel "fly" roof above the original roof which acts like an awning, shading the whole building and carrying away excess heat. It makes a huge difference to my cooling costs out here in the Nevada desert. If more buildings were built like this I believe it would make a significant difference to energy usage.
I also believe that having lots of black asphalt roads and black flat roofs, traps and collects heat, increasing the temperature.
Adding more greens like trees and such in cities and villages could reduce this effect.
It's basically the same principle as you are using, instead using greens. Like adding green rooftops with bushes and plants can decrease heat passing through by a lot, while also adding more greenery for both bees, birds, wildlife and improving air quality when done in larger scale.
Little bit like the Babylon gardens.
Correct me if all I am saying is BS, I am no expert. But it would look awesome none the less. Cities covered in green plants and flowers.
Just like how they're now cooling rivers and streams in Ireland and Schotland by planting trees arround the water.
If this "fly" roof is then slanted to cut down the sunlight in the hot months but lets the sunlight through in winter you can also allow sun heating when you want it. If you pick the right angle you could then slap solar panels on there with high efficiency.
@@MrArjanOskam greens need water, which in nevada is a bit of a shortage I believe, at least for this type of usage.
@@donbraga4863 I did mean more normal cities and Villages where there is water.
I can imagine that there are cities located in dessert like environments that it's pretty much impossible.
I would guess that there's some serious convective ventilation going on between those roofs. And if any of the roofing surfaces, inside or out, are relatively shiny, there's a radiant barrier at work, too. (Radiant barriers need an air space of about 3/4" minimum to function well, something ignored when foil faced insulation is installed with wallboard right on top of it.)
--Forty years ago, (almost to the day) I built a somewhat experimental addition for a friend that had a vented roof with a cavity underneath, bounded by foil below.
-- It was a cathedral ceiling with 2x8 rafters, with a poly vapor barrier on the underside, with foil faced fiberglass insulation, installed with the foil up, and the flanges stapled to the top edges of the rafters. Then the foil was perforated with a lot of short knife cuts (so not to act as a vapor barrier). Furring strips were installed on the top edges of the rafters, running eave-to-peak, and the plywood sheathing installed on top of that (with longer nails, to get through the furring into the rafters). The asphalt roof shingles were installed with 1-1/4" roofing nails, so that they would protrude through the back of the sheathing about 3/4", to just "kiss" the top face of the foil, in order to help maintain the 3/4" continuous vent cavity, because the insulation had a slight tendency to puff up. With vented soffits and ridge, the end product had continuous, 3/4x14-1/2" vent cavities running up the roof, surrounded by foil on the bottom, furring on the sides, and sheathing on the top.
-- The foil provided a radiant barrier to heat gain/loss, and combined with the convective ventilation, the whole thing worked better than I had hoped. The place was noticeably cooler in the summer, and warmer in the winter.
-- The biggest downside was installing the sheathing and the insulation at the same time, unrolling multiple rolls of insulation, stapling it four feet up, then wedging the rest of the roll between the rafters so it wouldn't roll away, and then installing a row of plywood. Wash, rinse, repeat. Some juggling was required.
Everyone with a basement can significantly cool their house using the geothermal quality of the cool earth. All you have to do is keep the widows and/or bulkhead to your basement open. Open a path for the air in your basement to come up (the cellar door). Keep the windows in the house closed and shades drawn in the day time and place a fan in one window blowing out in each room you wish to cool. Old school geothermal. In houses with forced hot air, if the furnace is in the basement, you can turn the blower on with no heat and bring up the cooler air that way.
This makes very little difference, practically speaking.
What happens when the basement gets to the ambiant outside temperature? How does the cooler air drom the basement get to the levels above the basement? Why not just turn the fan on in the furnace and keep all windos closed so that out side warm air does not come into th house?
@@walter6574 The temperature of the earth four feet below the surface is constant, about 50 degrees.
Warm air in the home needs to be evacuated so the cool air can rise under the pressure made by the fans. Remember that cool air sinks. In order to get it upstairs it must be pumped up and that the volume of the air in a house is constant so you must get rid of the hot air in order for the cool air to rise. It is the same concept as the cupola,hot air rise out and the cooler air rises up to refill the air volume of the house.
@@hughmanatee7433 how does the warm air upstairs get evacualted when the downstairs windows are open?
I especially like the glazing concept, as the current gold standard relies on filling the space between glazing with argon. Eventually those seals fail and the windows no longer perform at their original level; aerogels will stay where they are. The window might even be a bit stronger depending on how the glazing and aerogel are married to each other. If they are bonded with transparent adhesive, you could reasonably expect the entire window thickness to behave as a single, thick piece which would be more rigid and possibly more resistant to sound transmission.
I'm a bit hesitant though about the translucent properties of aerogel. It might be great at the moment, but I wouldn't consider windows filled with aerogel or another solid material before I know for sure the aerogel will stay translucent for at least a decade under the influence of heat, cold and sunlight.
Aerogels are usually pretty brittle and not very strong, so I wouldn't rely on it for making the glass stronger, and it's probably not soft enough to act as much of a sound absorber compared to an air gap, but I do like the idea of having an insulating layer that is more efficient than argon and actually stays where you put it.
I would be very interested in retrofit glazing to improve window performance.
Except a thicker material is not necessarily stronger than a thinner one, especially if it is subjected to thermal expansion/contraction. For instance, if you make windows from thick glass that glass has to be borosilicate one (eg Pyrex) or it will crack under temperature changes. So it is either unreliable or VERY expensive.
retrofitting the glass has limited effects with the type of windows used all over the US, if you look at european windows from germany or Switzerland, which are the benchmark in the industry for insulation, you’ll see that it’s the double to triple layers of glass + the frames insulated with silicon not allowing for any airflow. the sliding window style does not allow for such airtight insulation
It's always awesome when two different University groups create two highly-similar products independently and then get basically the same results. They've ended up supporting each other's technology and scientific findings, which will hopefully attract investors. If we can even use this type of technology to support AC, it would be incredible - same with radiative cooling, but this is more effective and can be applied outside optimum locations.
On a side topic, the passive cooling architecture built by ancient people carry advantages we can use in our buildings now. In fact, the same is true with incredible engineering masters of water management, like the Roman and Islamic empires. We're so used to resorting to shortcuts, electricity and easy-to-use materials (like plastic) that we forget you can do a lot of the same things without them (or at least adapt ancient methods to reduce unsustainable impact). I mean, some things are clearly just human laziness, despite easy alternatives existing - like using plastic bags.
I painted my roof with very white thermal reflective paint. You have to wear dark sunglasses it is so bright. My loft office went from too hot, even with the air conditioner on full blast to not having to use an air conditioner at all. Roofs should be the purest white they can possibly be.
This can blind aircraft pilots if every house and buildings have it.
As an electrician that works on roofs consistently I can attest to the fact that I've temporarily gone fairly blind looking at the white TPO material (that thin white rubbery stuff) that covers commercial roofs like apartment buildings. Learned my lesson.
@@simpolangthen we need to get aircraft pilots better sun glasses! Overcoming air craft pilot visibility can't be the stopping point for people avoiding their buildings from absorbing radiated heat from the sun!
Seems like the reflective coating would make the place colder than normal in the winter.
@@concert_rat1004 yes, but less than you would think. Due to the sun being at a lower angle in winter, the fraction of solar rays hitting the roof is less than in the summer, and more solar rays hit the side of a building. This can be used to optimize solar heating in winters by placing many windows on the south side of the building, and letting the sun shine inside the house. In the summer, most of the solar rays will be reflected away and the building is kept cool, even with the windows.
Great video and thanks for all the time you put into your videos. They are always exceptional and professional. I am a retired EE myself. Yes I would be willing to upgrade my A/C and windows but obviously will depend on the cost. Again, thank you.
3 Questions:
1 - Has there been any work on what happens to solids dissolved in the water after evaporation? Will the panels be cleaned or will you need distilled water or will the panels be replaced?
2 - Has there been any work on the cost of the water that is required from both a price and energy standpoint?
3 - Is freezing the water in panels a problem?
3 would have to be a problem. Ice can expand steel when freezing, aerogel would have no chance.
1 and 2 are very good questions. In the desert southwest, evaporative coolers (aka swamp coolers) have issues when sourced with water containing mineral deposits. If the water source for this device requires "pure" water, then significant filtration costs need to be factored in.
@@yatesmachine1234 My state in the SW US has extremely hard water. I remember needing to regularly knock calcium stalactites off spigots throughout the year at my old house. Swamp cooler substrate would clog with minerals and dust within months and needed constant replacement. Our pool would need to be regularly drained every 6 months or so because the minerals would concentrate so much in the water that they'd start to precipitate out of solution and clog our filters. Even after getting a whole-house water softener system, we still had issues.
I actually think, that reducing the pH-value of the water would have a significant positive effect if crystallisation is a problem. Of course, distilled, pure water would be the best solution to increase the lifetime of such systems but it's very costly. Having a reduced pH-value by adding some weak acids (acetic acid etc.) would e.g. dissolve crystallized calcium and like that, the aerogel-structure would be cleaned, regularly. The only additional point that has to be considered is to find a point at which the aerogel structure itself is not damaged. If that's not the case, just clean it.
However, I think that the setup has to be put horizontal anyway. Since the water is in the lower part, the aerogel structure shouldn't be damaged at all if dissolved salts are getting crystallized. I would adjust the design so that the part with the water container acts like a drawer. Like that, just pure evaporated water gets in contact with the aerogel.
To point 3:
I actually don't think, that "normal" freezing water should be a problem. If you would use a drawer-like system, water and aerogel would be separated, anyway.
Shock-freezing might cause issues if gaseous water resublimates within the aerogel structure. If the freezing process is slow (transition from gaseous to liquid first), the water should condensate into the liquid state and goes into the first container.
Yes I live in Malaysia. Our home is passively cooled by a bamboo grove and wind over the river (plus ceiling fans). Aerogel panels would make our bedroom cooler at night. I wonder if the heat drawn off the top of the panel could be captured to heat water for a warm bath.🤔
This is the kind of thing they need to consider along with it's other uses. The more things one material can do, the less materials will be required to build a home, also a big win.
It's already very easy to heat water with the sun. You just need a black hose coiled in a progressive loop, situated within a black box under maximum sunlight...
Nothing in the system gets above room temperature, so no heat can be extracted. The system is a combination of an evaporative cooler (like your skin when you sweat) and a radiative heat exchanger that ‘links’ the unit to outer space.
And just like it is impossible to heat water above body temperature with your sweat, this system is limited to room temperature and below.
Unless it runs out of water, I suppose. 😊
In my town when it gets too hot people visit swimming pool,beach, or congregate in the library this saves $ for all,,,
@@Quickened1 If you have the startup cost, vacuum sealed copper tubes will heat the water to near boiling. Naturally, the setup that harnesses the sunlight will block out the sunlight from anything behind it, so they do have some secondary cooling properties.
Wow, what an interesting video! I appreciate the information on alternative cooling methods that don't require electricity. The examples provided were very helpful in understanding the potential applications of these methods in our homes.
Regarding use on the side of buildings in climates where freezing happens, this usage is in constructing a cooling device which is tricky as the comments show. Matt did another video on aerogel as an insulator. I too would like to get my hands on a sheet of it, or would like to make it from ingredients!
Aerogel insulates about 2.5 x better than fiberglass, so insulating sheets would be useful for insulating walls and ceilings. It is fragile, subject to cracking and breaking. We have a long way to go on using it practically, but the core idea is powerful.
Passive cooling design of buildings and homes is also a key. With good design to minimize heat transfer, a lot of cooling can be done by letting out the heat of the day and letting in the cool of the night. I do this in my apartment.
We are in a state where the easy single-approach answers have been done. We must accept that our future will use a combination of many technologies. None of the solutions will be simple, but we have computers and small motors to accomplish continuous adaptation, giving simple easy to use final products.
America, we have everything we need, even supercomputers in the GPU's in our home gaming machines (great excuse to get one ;-) )
Let's get inventing-it's what we do!
The window application is really fascinating. And, if they can get good longevity and low manufacturing costs could be a game changer. Double pane windows are a huge improvement over single pane, but still very much limited by the fact that convection currents between the panes can transfer heat. Being able to lock up air inside an aerogel would be massive for improving efficiency. As an example of just how bad today's windows are, I have very well insulated walls (spray foam and blown in fiberglass). In front of my windows I have dual cellular blackout shades which add something like an R-5 to the windows. Despite the fact that I have modern, double pane, casement, low-e windows, you can feel significant amounts of cold air from around the edges of the shades. And it isn't that the windows are leaking - it's just that the windows are that much colder than the room.
White roofing for any building within 40 degrees latitude helps a lot too. We're in Tennessee USA and I got a white roof on my old house - energy bill DROPPED. Got married and moved to his house, we painted that metal roof very light gray. Again, energy bill dropped and we're much more comfortable.
It's challenging to find commercial suppliers for residential aerogel windows -especially those building "German" or European tilt windows. Thanks again, Matt.
Matt, I just your channel. I am loving it. ❤❤ I am exploring building an off grid glamping project in the Azores and you are informing me on the good the bad and the ugly.
The new intro is very cool, Matt. Thank you for keeping it short so we could get right to the great info you always give us
"Evaporative cooling, perfect for regions with lack of available water, you just have to moisten the hydrogel with the water you don't have, every four days" you should check your definition of great, the wind through roof cooler was better for people cooling, because it actually doesn't consume anything at all, there are building designs that use convection currents for passive cooling, using evaporative methods has its drawbacks(needs water), natural heat flow doesn't, you have heat you get heat flow (hot air goes up) use it to collect the colder air from below, you just need any amount of wind outside even the one generated by the building's heat, it will work as long as there is a colder region anywhere above, space for instance, some black body radiation to use it, the rest of the aerogel sandwich was fine. But some solar panels and some diode coolers could also work to concentrate the heat and send it up (less efficiency (2 energy to 1 heat), 8x more electricity use than standard heat pump (AC ~ 4 heat, 1 energy), no gases released on disposal, no moving parts only aging due to heat up expansion and miss use(over voltage bad for anything) over a normal solid chunk of metal aging)
The addition to double glazing is interesting as that is the sort of high cost and quality application that would make increased performance worthwhile
In my house years ago we had all the houses updated to be more energy efficent ... except for one window in the house. The difference is extremely noticable on a cold day.
Fantastic episodes Matt, you are the man for the latest on technology and anything on climate change. Thank you
This seems to great for the windows. There are 97% reflective white coatings (have you not covered this?), exterior insulation, heat & moisture exchangers, and whole house sealing that can all be used in combination for a very energy efficient building. Add solar or wind and net-positive is reasonable to expect. Our building codes have to be updated to make these efficiencies required.
Love the channel Matt. I would think that a fully clear window is not always necessary. If a translucent aerogel insulated skylight was a simpler solution it could offer many benefits, summer and winter. Adding light where needed without heat gain or loss especially in the commercial marketplace.
Thanks, Richard. Good callout on the skylight!
@@UndecidedMF Not a big fan of skylights - they break the insulation layer and are also an area where leaks can develop. I much prefer a solar skylight where a solar panel on the roof connects to an LED panel inside which gives light in much the same way as a skylight (coming and going with the sun) but which you can energise with mains power at night to provide a constant light after dark. Only a pair of wires from the panel to the LEDs...
@@UndecidedMF What about a callout for a Transparent form of Silica Aerogel to augment the Efficiency of Photovoltaic Panels?
@@ridethetalk but then you don’t get to see the stars at night or awesome lightning during storms 🙂. So far (knock on wood) no problems with mine, I have 2 in my roof since I bought the house (over 22 years ago) and I’ve had the roof replaced 2x. Aerogel would probably be really helpful in reducing the heat buildup in the attic, partly caused by the skylights. I’d definitely consider new ones with aerogel when I replace them, which eventually I’ll have to do as they’re showing their age.
@@ridethetalk There is always the fiber optic middle ground solution, though that doesn't provide light at night, obviously, unless combined with LEDs.
I love the stories about using materials science to solve our energy problems. The fewer the moving parts/complexity, the better.
There's always limitations, though. This hydrogel periodically needs to be "watered" to continue operating properly. While it turns out that water tends to be scarce in the hot, dry areas which need cooling most - indeed, water is more expensive to transport than electricity.
But it does promise to be an improvement. Another tool, another option, another solution.
u always have such intriguing themes, thx alot! very interesting and informative ^^ definitly would upgrade to a material like that if it became widely available, at an affordable price ^^
Hi Matt , thanks for your videos. I have made myself some experiments at home trying to save energy using different materials and techniques and until now I have managed to reduce my energy consumption almost with 50% comparing with the consumption of my neighbors in Amsterdam, Netherlands. So isolating my windows with semitransparent foil I have achieved a saving of almost 40%. Of course there’s more room for improvement but sometimes you can achieve very good results with some simple solutions 😊 which don’t cost a lot of money and new experience materials. Isn’t it?
In the US at least HFCs are not allowed within air-conditioners anymore. We use 401a currently and are moving further away as well. 401a is an HCFC. R22 is the HFC we used to use and it's not even allowed to been outlawed since 2020 and was being phased put before that. In 2019 the only way to get it was taking it out of old units or the remains of what people had on hand at the time.
I think you mean R22 is a HCFC. CFC (such as r12) was banned in 1994. HCFC was what recently got axed due to the chlorine (the first C in that) whereas HFC doesn’t have chlorine and is still ok. R410a has been the predominant replacement HFC. But it is also on the phase out chopping block starting in 2025 because it technically has been producing more green house gasses than r22 (good job epa dunces). You have the right idea though.
WOW!!!! THANK YOU, FOR REVEALING ALL OF THIS AMAZING TECHNOLOGY!!!
It's certainly fascinating. I always look at the these advances, though and think, "still not thinking about an end of life plan plan for the product first."
I see a potential problem with the hydrogel component. I live in Arizona and use humidifiers during the drier months. Our water supply is very hard. After a few weeks, the evaporative filters are ruined by the accumulation of minerals left behind as the water evaporates. Using a water softener doesn't help, as it just replaces the "hard" minerals with "soft" sodium chloride, which still clogs the filters. I suspect that the hydrogel will suffer the same fate as the water evaporates, leaving the minerals behind. You would be compelled to use distilled or demineralized water.
Dont AC units create water? Couldnt you use the drip from an AC unit to create the water for the aerogel>
@@ChristopherFranko Interesting Idea. Strictly speaking, AC Units don't "create" water, but, they do pull water out of the atmosphere by condensing the humidity in the air on the coils. The average relative humidity (RH) for Arizona is 38.5%. For comparison the average RH for Colorado is 54.1% and for Connecticut is 69.2%. The Arizona RH of 38.5% is for the whole state, which includes mountainous regions, like Flagstaff, but most of the population lives in Phoenix and Tucson, which are in the Sonoran desert. I'm not sure how well this would work here in Tucson.
Matt,
When I lived in the high desert in San Bernardino CA, we used 'swamp coolers,' as normal AC froze over in far less than our 120 degree July weather. They were plumbed to receive slow drip or fine spray hydration, only while running, as water was scarce.
Air blown through wet straw mat evaporative coolers did provide heat relief of up to 40 degrees F. but 85 is still hot. They helped me with bleeding, dry sinuses too, via airborne moisture but they had a serious health problem with black mold formation. Replacing infected, expensive mats proved insufficient, because once mold got into duct work, the entire system stubbornly stayed contaminated.
Could an aerosolized foamed glass work as the white evaporative layer?
It would be potentially flushable with fungicides or to rid it of dust or allergens like pollen.
Glass is a bio-inert sol.
Borosilicate glass has high heat resistance. Perhaps microtubials for moisture transfer?
We used wax sprues, which melt away in the kiln, while making bronze castings.
Corrugated glass could be stacked cross grain and layered like safety glass with a porous plastic middle layer.
We might be able to recycle glass and plastic as raw materials too.
We used polarized plastic film on sun facing windows. It helped, but being grey and restricting light entry, the film turned the rooms dark. The clear aerogel sounds like an improvement. $$$?
In the UAE, many kids get lung disease from silica particulates. Air filtration matters.
Stagnant air is a misery, especially if it is humid with poor air quality. 'It's not the heat; it's the humidity.' is not just a cliché. One rainy South Jersey summer with no air movement will convince you.
Matt, Stay Hopeful.
You are such a blessed relief from politics, I can't even tell you.
nice story. you probable already know that white vinegar kills mold amazingly, especially the pure stuff....i had similar problems in the tropics-endless rain....
Why was your AC freezing up?
I would never hook up an evaporative cooler to a ducting system
@Mark Me ya it really shouldn't freeze up regardless of outdoor temperature if it's charged correctly and has a clean filter. I think you would use the swamp cooler separate from the ducted system.
@@mr.monitor. That's correct the freezer is just has copper pipes to cool the fluid in the copper pipes...even moisture in the room air condensates into a drip tray. Its 2 systems -not a swamp cooler. Im in the tropics i don't need more humidity....
I would be concerned about Legionella. Plus these only work in dry areas, such as Melbourne, Australia, but not Brisbane, Australia.
Thanks for the video. I appreciate the education you supply. One thing: Light years are a measure of distance not time.
Perfect, I was looking for a good addition to a cascading self powered system
I think it would be amazing to use to help existing ACs, love how it would be used to be an additive rather than substitution. Also love the idea of the aerogel windows...my windows are garbage. I wonder if any of this could be flipped for environments where we have cold too.
It wouldn't work because ACs do the same thing but orders of magnitude better. The two technologies are incompatible.
very interesting info. I have 19 yrs experience and training in HVAC and in my experience "Chillers" combined with "Economizers" are the greatest efficiency gains EVER ! ! would love to hear a comparison. I have only seen modern Water Chillers on commercial buildings but Back in the 50s and 60s there were Water Chillers on many homes in northern California. CONCEPT: the condenser coils are not cooled by ambient air - they are cooled by circulating water that drops through an "Evaporator" this allows the condenser to be cooled to far lower temps than air cooled condensers. ECONOMIZERS are simply "Outside air exchangers" which use the cooler outside air at night to be used instead of trying to cool down the warmer inside air - again; almost exclusively used by large commercial buildings. Would love to talk to someone about designing smaller units for individual homes because it is extremely efficient in comparison to "Mass Produced" "Planned Obsolescence" Units that are Ubiquitous today.
For the life of me, I can't understand why people stop using a technology that works. Why did these chillers go out of use?
In India, I believe the following were the reasons. Air conditioners were more powerful than chillers/desert coolers and people appreciated the de-humidified air compared to the humidity load that the desert coolers / chillers typically pumped into the house. Was that the reason in Cali as well?
@@prakadox people in india are smart theydont use coolers that's useless
REALLY glad I stumbled onto this vid! I hope this happens RIGHT AWAY! I hope the retrofit to an AC unit will be affordable for us all. I am SO ticked about the inequities of this world. Shouldn't have famine in other countries - Thanks again for this good news, Matt.
I think the future is combining A/C units with aerojel panels. Possibly in the window above it, or in the actual system.
Could also work with the fridge, since it's always expelling water/ice anyway.
Hey Matt. Love your channel and research. I'd love to hear your take on Aptera's current situation. You are excellent at gathering, deciphering and presenting information.
Thanks for the suggestion. I've actually talked to them a few times ... might put together a future video (TBD).
I’ve got a pre-order since a year ago and this will be my first new vehicle ever!
@@apple1231230 That's awesome. Good luck!
I’ve been doing the fan-in-the-window trick since I was a kid. If it gets cooler at night you put a fan in a window strategically placed to circulate air from the outside through the whole house. This cools down, not just the air, but everything in the house.
If you really want to get fancy you get a fan with a thermostat.
That's a great solution for getting the house to the outdoor temps/humidity levels, but you'll need additional solutions to get below that.
@@UndecidedMF Regarding unconventional cooling, I'm doing a house currently, 24v dc chestfreezer- 2/3 full of ice with copper pipe coiled thru the ice, circulating pump slowly circulates antifreeze thru it up to a small truck radiator above it. Above the radiator is ducting with 12v fans sucking the air to the rooms-All DC with 60 panels on the roof...(a condensation tray under it...
oh and fish fingers etc in containers on top of the ice.... I'm not applying for a patent....Love ur channel btw...
A long time ago people in the south built these houses with brick columns threw them they were open under the house it was usually raised 3-4 feet and they were open in the attic it would create a cooling affect threw the home drawing in the cold dense air in the crawl space and cooling the attic
Well, let me know when I can use it for my home. Informative . Thank you.
I put a IR reflective film on outside of windows in my flat, they block about 10% visible light but they helped me cool my home in summer by about 4 degrees Celsius. Passively.
I dont know Your country but we can buy those windows as standard. In the winther they keep the temperature inside better as well.
And 10% was a learning. Plants in thewindows grow very slow and some has been donated to heaven. So the shoise is to look a´t the bill for varming up and comfort.
@@jensholm5759 Yes, we can buy such windows here (Poland) but I wanted a low cost retrofit, rather than having to replace entire panes.
I still plan to replace entire windows next year, because they are already old, just needed a quick solution.
I don't have plants near windows because I have cats and so the only plants we have are shade-liking plants on high shelves.
@@WinghavenET A quick fis is better then none.I wish You good luck.
Interesting product. A more detailed follow up on the "aerogel" double pane windows would be useful
Very interesting! Thanks for bringing this to us, Matt! It blows my mind how something passive can not only prevent heat from getting past but can actually cool so much just from the effect of evaporating water.
When I tell people about things I learn on your channel they don't believe me. It's good that you cite your sources.
This sounds very interesting for things that you would like to passively cool or improving existing air conditioning units. But I don’t see it having value for housing insulation since in the winter you want to keep that heat in. Unless there is some way to stop/reverse the cooling effect, maybe if the hydrogel is dry.
On another note have you ever looked into Magnetic refrigeration? I had done a research paper on this in college and wonder if anything had really happened with it.
Passive cooling as its limitations and it may work fine in a dry climate. But when you're dealing with 90% or more humidity levels you need Refrigeration to take the humidity out of the air.
Thts right and why I only use air to air heating for the 3 big rooms. I has 3 steps. Warmong/cooling - replacing old air to new and make the humidity to a good one.
Before that we insolated the old house as well as we could.
So You have to do, what makes sense. No mushrooms behind the sofas.
I think we just need to be building new housing smarter, in ways reflective of local conditions. Although I imagine something like aerogel would be ideal to integrate into industrial buildings, particularly for processes that generate a lot of ambient heat
I think the aerogel might be great for insulating homes and windows. As for replacing cooling or the refrigeration cycle. I just think we need to find another refrigerant that is low pressure and build efficient systems like having digital compressors they can ramp up or down.
In India, earthen pots are used over rooftops during hot summers and the temperature comes down by atleast 7-8 degrees
Over here we start putting plants to shade the Air-conditioning unit on the roof as the unit is heat by the sun it will run harder and use more electricity. Olden days people in warmer climate deliberately make the roof drain rain water slowly, when the sun is up it helps to prevent the house from heating up fast.
Biomimicry of termite infrastructure is awesome engineering incorporating heat and cooking surface area control management. Worth researching 🤙🏼
Great channel mate 💯👍
Another great video! I would like to know if the water in the hydrogel needs to be simple tap water or if something like distilled water needs to be used to prevent mineral buildup. If it needs to be distilled, how does the energy-producing distilled water compare to the energy used in traditional air conditioning? These are the questions that keep me up at night.
I was wondering the same thing. Distilling water is very energy intensive.
Anyone know if the aerogel windows also be more soundproof than regular windows? or would it be worse, or the same?
I've been trying to think about ways to soundproof windows for a home studio.
Yes yes and yes. I’m in Florida, the only affordable housing that I have access to is an older mfg home so my energy bill is atrocious! I’m always looking at what might help me drive my power bill down and increase my comfort.
You can put four inch pvc about four feet deep in the ground and have it with a computer fan with a solar panel and battery charging also to store Ebro for the fan to run at night when the sun is down and lit the fan on the outlet side of the pipe to pull the air the out the pipes cooled air. Thought of this many years ago. Run it during the winter to keep the place from freezing temps too for like a summer home when you’re not there in the winter and it keeps the pipes from freezing without electricity.
Aerogel is all well and good, but until it comes down in price I would suggest focusing on heat pumps instead of AC (or modify AC's to be heat pumps instead) as that technology already is available.
Because of this channel, I remove or add something new to my dream home wishlist every week. Can't tell if it's making me more or less undecided
Ahaha same! New tech for my extremely passive dream home. 😂
I do the exact same. But now I need to win the lottery to find my dream home. Haha
Ha! Sorry about that.
Aerogel has been out now for several years. Matt, I would like to see some videos on the progress in making products we could actually build a house with. How is that going? How is the refinement of the processes to create these materials and bring the costs down going? What are the challenges scientists and engineers are now wrestling with? It would be fascinating.
We need to be implementing solutions in the next 5 years to address our energy consumption. I my apartment for example, I could retrofit an insulating sheet made from aerogel to the inside walls. a 1.5" thick sheet would add about 15 to my R-13 walls, basically cutting that heat load in half. Also aerogel window panes, double paned, could increase my R-1 windows to R-5.
The window panes need to not be so frangible, so may need to be stabilized by gluing to a sheet of glass, depending.
If the cost is higher, that can be ok, if the products can be made to last a very long time. Guaranteed financing plans and subsidies can overcome the cost reluctance.
Many of us are ready to implement all this now, exploring all the ramifications and paving the way for better products that will succeed for the long run and solve our energy & climate dilemma.
Doing something to the glass panes is ok. But a lot of windows of earlier houses aren't insulated around the window itself. I helped a guy do blower tests on houses. A lot of air came in around the windows, especially under the window. You could also take his special camera and see the hot and cold areas. So when the window guys came to put my new windows in I looked around and sure enough, mine didn't have insulation. Or it was cellulose and dropped to the floor area instead of on the wall. So I pulled some board off and put some there. Lots warmer now.
I would be curious about how well it would be as a thermal barrier for vehicles too. Firewall, exhaust systems, general insulation. I see it being popular in these applications as well.
Really interesting application for Aerogel. It’s a very fragile material, so I wonder what it’s shelf life would be in the MIT use-case.
There are also aerogel combined materials like pipe insulation. Less effective but flexible.
There are various different kind of aerogels. There is a polyimide (what Kapton is made out of, or rather that is a brand name of this material) based aerogel that is quite strong and durable. The old, classic silica based aerogel is quite fragile because it is very brittle.
Is aerogel UV stable long term or does it break down?
@@johnowens5342 the gel in this video discolours over time but I’m not sure if that reduces its effectiveness.
@@johnowens5342 its silica. glass.
One thing i have wondered, is if we could use a non-metallic housing for our air conditioners.
Also, when I was a kid we changed to plexi for windows, which transfers heat quite a bit slower than glass. But, we stopped using it when we realized that plastic and ultraviolet light do not work well together. Do we have a better material today for windows?
The problem with double/triple glazing windows is mostly radiation, not thermal conductivity. Currently, there are glazings that reflect IR and help retain the radiation inside, even adding a curtain helps a lot.
I wonder if it would be possible (or even beneficial) to somehow combine this with the passive-cooling white paint NightHawkInLight was experimenting with to make the cooling even stronger?
Combining this technology with photovoltaic panels to cool them would be very nice 👌
How do you envision that working? I've thought of circulating underground water behind the panels in order to keep them cool in the summer and snow-free in the winter. For thermally balancing panels, that seems to be a pretty good option to me. Or if cooling was the only concern, ducting could be used to passively pull air from the crawl space and out across the backs of the panels.
I would love to use/test e ASA or CNC as an insulator in our travel van. I'm about to use Rock Wool or Acoustic Tiles out of necessity.
But Aerogel type of products sound amazing...
Ac units don't release hydroflurocarbons.
That was said as if it's a natural by-product of normal operation.
They only release refrigerant when something is broken on it. Hence why in most countries, you need to have a license to install and work on them.
Also. Most new air conditioners don't use hydroflurocarbons, refrigerant technology is always changing, and in australia, they don't even sell domestic air conditioners with this type of refrigerant anymore.
Refrigerants are an amazing technology that triples the output of any power put into the system compared to non refrigerant based heating and cooling systems. Like oil radiators, and definitely better than burning wood indoors in poorer countries that massively impacts people's health and the environment.
More interested in the single-pane replacement windows. I live in a Mid-century house with a lot of single pane glass, and have resisted swapping it out with IG's due to the maintenance issues around seals breaking down and moisture migration.
Insanely simple solution here. Interior or exterior storm windows. Bam! Air gap.
@@Montusama used to have them. Lots of dirt and dead bugs get between, plus they look terrible in most installations.
I remember watching a documentary about Aerogel and one of the major problems was that due to the manufacturing process, it cannot be made in large sizes. Is that still the case or have they got round the problem (I remember hearing that it is also very expensive to produce) ?
"(I remember hearing that it is also very expensive to produce)"
It's expensive and isn't very stable in its pure form.
It would be an awesome low volume option for insulation if it were cheaper and more stable.
I have an Aerogel lined jacket that all but eliminates conductive and convective heat loss. However, it cannot be laundered or dry cleaned, only spot cleaning.
I think there are a few issues. Namely, evaporative Cooling is extremely useful, in places where it's dry like Pheonix, West Texas and California. But, in places on the East Coast, East Texas and the Southern US. It's actually incredibly Humid. Air can only hold a certain amount of Moisture and so the efficiency of having Water Vapor carry out the heat decreases dramatically when it's humid. And in these places in particular, there's an average Humidity of 80% or higher, yet the temperature frequently sits in the Hundreds or more especially in the south, this means Evaporative cooling is extremely ineffective there.
Air Conditioner's were originally built to remove humidity from Factories, it just turns out they make things cooler as well as a result.
Radiative Cooling has a lot of potential though in general, if houses were built to be far more resistant to Heat to begin with and had "Radiator's" in the form of metal barrier's between themselves and the sun, that would dramatically decrease the need for any sort of AC until the temperature's get unbearable.
Look up this article at PV Magazine: "French startup unveils new residential thermo-acoustic heat pump
Equium has developed a new thermo-acoustic heat pump core that reportedly produces 3 kW to 4 kW of heat for every kilowatt of power it consumes. It says the refrigerant-free device could generate domestic hot water at temperatures of up to 80 C.
JANUARY 2, 2023 BEATRIZ SANTOS
Most architects will tell you that the best way to cool is to not let the heat into the building in the first place. A lot of installations - particularly warehouses, shopping centres and industrial buildings - will do rather well with this I suspect. I admire pragmatic solutions which let us evolve our way towards the proverbial nirvana, too many “activist” types want all or nothing and right this instant; technology can rarely deliver on this and it’s far more realistic to combine advances like these on a more gradual basis, aim for the achievable.
FWIW aircon systems in cities don’t just consume power - they pump out a LOT of heat themselves so overall there’d a broader net lowering of ambient temperature using this particularly when you’re talking about areas with frequently idle wind patterns. I’d like to see these broader combinations used the way Jaime Lerner was trying to achieve in Curitiba with their “outdoor air conditioning” too.
A nice augment to this would be a way of capturing ambient moisture for use in the system; probably more useful in more humid climates but more necessary in drier ones. It’d be interesting to see how much water they end up needing to use for a practical in-production design.
I never had to finish the work but I used what they did prior in middle east. You can have semi porous clay with water under it and this can cause cool from water evaporation. While the clay blocks the sun ray. If there is no sun, wind hitting the wet clay will cause evaporation and reduced heat as well. And this can be mass scaled.
This is a terribly inefficient and hard way to achieve a humidifier.
A mag lev fan blasting a pale of water or using solar to lift water and drip it down a wall will be at least 3x more efficient.
Just put loads of pipes opening in your room, air is pulled into pipes is best free advice.
Nothing will get you from 40 degrees C (here at midnight in August) to 20 degrees other than huge amounts of energy usage.
I wonder if you heard of what some call "sky cooling paint"
When i heard aerogel letting infrared through i remembered on similar principle the paint works by "exchanging heat with sky" because it emits radiation wavelength that isn't absorbed by atmosphere (if i remember correctly)
The drop below ambient temperature was i think also about 5°C or more
It consisted of microspheres (don't remember the original chemical but CaCO3 supposedly does the same) and it was mixed into "paint like" consistency in acrylic with acetone
Ban gasoline, ban gas stoves, buy electric vehicles, use electric stoves, but don’t use any electricity....see where this goes.
Then produce non recycling lithium waste that equal to nuclear waste..
It will goes to stone age orrrrr magic age where all things fuels by mana :p
Actually it’s more like ban cars in general. Swap it for trains, bikes and public transit. Then you can use as much electricity as you want and reduce housing and environmental costs. Cars are just not sustainable in any way. Electric cars are cope and don’t really solve the problem. It would be best to just use trains like other countries and make cities walkable.
This would preserve the most amount of electricity and keep things relatively sustainable. More reactors too, that one’s just people overreacting.
Will be back to stone age in no time.
What will the VVIP's use? Imagine POTUS with 50 secret service with him inside a bus or a train.
Did they insulate under the concrete pad?
I did this in my garage 4 years ago and it has made a huge difference.
Unheated and -40C outside and my garage will be between +5C and -5C depending on the length of cold snap and garage door opening frequency.
It basically works as your skin. Which is impermeable at the first layer but is filled with micro ducts that allow water to evaporate on it's surface.
It won't work in humid or swing temperature environments as said. And it will consume loads of water in dry hot climates, where it's suppose to be ore efficient.
Yet Another "breakthrough " that isn't one .this channel is the best for Vaporware
If this channel covered wide-scale commonly used technologies. The channel would be called “Decided” 😂
"Breakthrough" is nowhere in the title or script of the video, so you're applying that yourself. My videos are about exploring what's happening in the sustainable tech space. A lot of times that's looking at tech in the lab to see where things might be heading ... not just where they currently are.
@@UndecidedMF you know what you are
Another awesome episode would be curious to model out efficiencies, costs, ROI and total cost of ownership
I mean the more demand will increase people will find a way to meet it so yeah I'm excited to see all the ways its used into the future.
I'm also intrested in SolidState cooling.
This is awesome although it seems to be primarily concerned with creating systems that fit into tight spaces like urban environments. I'd love to learn more about systems that would work well with homes that have room or land to use for passive cooling. How can we improve thermal mass based cooling and are there research projects for this scenario?
White or very light tan roofing shingles help A LOT.
In case this hasn't been obvious to the materials scientists involved, you mentioned end-grain wood several times. This material is available in bulk at low cost. We have millenia of accumulated research on gluing, cutting and shaping it. Recently I have seen examples of "transparent wood" where all the living material is bleached out, leaving just the bundle of hollow straws made of cellulose. This is a precise microstructure with ideal properties for the evaporative cooler application. The bundle of straws structure is far superior to an isotropic gel. Different species of trees are known to have unusually coarse grain like southern pine (larger diameter straws) or finer grain like oak (thinner straws but more of them), so you can have a fair degree of control over the capillary properties of the material by choosing an appropriate species of wood to start with.
I have been cooling my house in Australia without electricity for more than 30 years. I can't imagine what the rest of you are doing. I think Matt likes high technology because it gives him something to make videos about.
And how are you doing it?
I have been a HVACR mechanic for 32 years .CFC were phased out and HCFC are almost completely phased out from the CAA .HFC are starting to be phased out due to GWP and HFO ‘s are the new thing they have no ozone depletion and 1 GWP potential .This will be the second time I have been through the phasing out of refrigerants .There will be Chaos for years with multiple “drop in replacements” and competing types that over lap cause a myriad of issues and headaches from contractors not labeling the type in put in a unit to technical issues like zoetropes separating in the case of small leaks changing the dynamics of a system to the oil types changing from mineral to Alkybenzene to Poe which is really hydroscopic and if the oil swaps were not done right and the BRIC number was too high causing damage to systems . Until the industry settles in some key ones .Last time we went from cfc r12 to 134a ,r502 to r404a , r22( HCFC) to 410a and r11 to r123 with about 2 dozen others types being in play for a time as well . We were just getting settled in and now the HFO swap so I welcome something to change the game entirely .
We have a home built in 1950. I am always keeping an eye out for cost effective insulative/ temperature regulating products that do not require extensive controls, either electronic or otherwise. What is the best long term cost per SQF or square meter.
I put a ceiling fan in the ceiling, 2nd story of my house. I've used lots of window fans in past with little relief, but this monster does the trick.
Blows hot air into attic (which has several exits) and that creates a pull to bring cool air into the house..
I use it during summer, mostly at night, leave windows open farthest from the fan. Close the windows in morning.
I'm down to using AC for about 2 weeks each Michigan summer and I could probably stop that too.
MUCH cheaper than ACing whole house!
I live in Florida and I have been looking for options to air conditioning for years. Many of the options used by our ancestors are not allowed to be built into our homes today. I did add solar powered air conditioning to my workshop so I have 74 degree temperature which is totally solar powered. The initial cost is mostly in the battery. If battery technology gets better and cheaper then this is a much better option. I am hoping to either replace or supplement my central air conditioning with small multiple AC units powered by solar.
this all is amazing and the applications seem tremendous but the production might be its achilles so maybe if different materials could achieve the same or better results like how could we use this in a technology setting more and more machines require cooling too can we combine the two and how if the cooling effect requires water and usually water and electricity dont mix.
So do we habe to cover our whole rpof woth icer?
You didn't show us the installation process and the full explanation of how it cools the house
Prior to the invention of the air conditioner, people who lived in the more tropical/warmer parts of the world designed their dwellings to utilize natural cooling.
Design/architecture, engineering, and materials used were studied and factored in relative to the number of people living in the dwelling.
The problem with residential and commercial cooling is how densely populated areas are. Even with non electric or mechanical cooling solutions/material, it won’t really help if the architecture was designed to utilize current AC solutions. There are urban areas whose overall design are very good heat traps.
But I like the idea of going back to cooling solutions that do not require power, if it will help reshape how cities and residential areas are engineered.
It might even lead to a better population distribution instead of having densely concentrated/populated areas.
I do not want to go digging through all of the comments to see if someone else has said it, so here we go potentially doubling up on an idea.
If the ICER (and similar) designs are using evaporative cooling, and aerogel has pores that are so small, can aerogel also be used for desalination? It occurs to me that if one could use sea water rather than fresh water it would be far more practical in a lot of parts of the world. So if the product could be used to desalinate the evaporating water, and there was a good way of collecting the vapor, this would be incredibly useful. I do not know about the probability of the aerogel simply becoming clogged with salt crystals or any other kind of problem like it, but it is a thought.
If the system always has to rely on distilled water to keep it functional I do not think it can be achieved in scale. If we could just make clean reliable water available more cheaply to the world now, that is a huge market. So taking the water we can purify and then sending it back into the atmosphere (where water vapor acts to enhance the greenhouse effect) seems - not better.
Cool concept, though. I am certain that it will find an abstracted use in smaller scale for something more critical than basic comfort.
The efficacy is inversely related to the humidity, from the swamp. It’s amazing how much you can lower your AC bill with thick insulated concrete walls. The thermal density equalizes inside temperature over time. Keeping the cool of the night the the day and warmth of the day through the night, like a cave.
Really enjoy all your videos. Thank you
You should do a video for the (us) people on the gulf coast who at only once in my life time reached 8°f and are always feeling triple digits in summer w/ very high humidity. Give us a combo video of a budget and the best build please.
I'm from the South, and I never heard of sleeping porches. Seems resonable as long as you have good screens against mosquitos though.
This is a ABSV (alfa bravo super video) all the boxes is check ✔ keep up the the good work. As the NAVY say carry on.
The idea is nice, but here in the Netherlands where our 25kW solar array on average only gets ~11% utilisation.
That array produces as much as running a 2,75kW generator 24/7/365.
In summer those panels produce more power in two hours than my airco uses in a day.
I would like your opinions on this idea I have for an underground electricity generating system. There is a reservoir of ferrofluid at the top of the system, from which a tube goes downwards about 500metres where it drives a turbine. The ferrofluid then collects in a bottom reservoir. I then have thousands of tubes (straws), immersed in the ferrofluid, that go upwards for about 34feet where they curve back downwards for a couple of inches. Underneath the downward curved end of every tube, is a magnet, which pulls the ferrofluid onto itself forming a nice prickly blob. The magnet can only hold so much ferrofluid, and the excess will fall into yet another reservoir just beneath the magnet. This reservoir has thousands of tubes leading up to thousands of magnets, filling yet another reservoir about thirty feet above. I repeat this process until I fill a reservoir that is above the original reservoir, which it feeds.
Obviously the tubes and reservoirs would have to be pre-filled before the system would start working and it would be a nightmare to build, but is it possible? How high can a magnet pull ferrofluid? I've heard that neodymium magnets can last 700 years, so have I just invented a clean energy source?
Overall another great video as usual!
To read, understand and fully consider without having to pause rewind and replay… allow more time for graphic diagrams (like 7:51)
The “suspension of disbelief” makes for happier viewers and avoids distraction from other things.
If other people watching are waiting to suggest an Eminem song instead they’ll usually do it when a video paused (or when the audio stops for longer than an awkward silence)