Submitted by Apple Inc, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application titled Liquid Cooled Portable Computer, on Thanksgiving Day 2008 (November 27th).
The patent mostly relates to methods for cooling notebooks, however may be extended into portable media devices such as the iPhone and iPod touch. The patents describe some heat-transfer methods, specifically using liquid coolants to transport heat in future notebooks. As Macnn points out, quad-core processors should be hitting the market early next year, and cooling systems will be growing increasingly crucial.
Two cooling systems are presented in the patent. The first shown here, utilizes an “active heat-transfer” mechanism where the liquid used to coll the processors is in two stages, such as liquid and gaseous. …”the liquid coolant may include bubbles that include a gas. Therefore, in some embodiments nucleation of the bubbles and/or latent heat may be used to increase the heat-transfer coefficient of the liquid coolant. Furthermore, in some embodiments the liquid coolant includes metal particles to increase the heat-transfer coefficient of the liquid coolant,” Macnn explains.
In other setups, the computer may react to the liquid coolant by coupling it through to the passive heat sink (instead of an active-heat transfer shown in Fig.1A). In the second illustration, heat that is transferred by the liquid coolant to the aluminum plate is less noticeable to the user.
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8 Comments to “Apple Files Patent For Liquid Cooled Portable Computer”
So does this mean I won’t be able to fry an egg on my Macbook Pro anymore?
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You’ll always be able to cook yourself breakfast on the MBP’s battery. If they go quad-core mobile, you’ll be able to cook an entire meal.
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maybe the liquid cooled means you can cool your beverage while your notebook cooks your food
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What if they sold Macbooks and then you’d get a six pack of beer for free with them ?
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It’d have to be a “premium” beer like Miller High Life or something
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Cooling systems need to be completely rethought. Even this patent isn’t radical enough. They want to introduce quad-core mobile processors, but no cooling systems are sufficient enough to handle the heat that would be produced.
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@oCRICKET: I think it’s a fine line between processor heat and cooling systems, but I see what you’re saying. If they keep increasing the processing power, then cooling systems will need to be redesigned or else it will always be the same overheating battle for consumers.
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They’re using water from the melted polar ice caps… http://www.maccomedy.com/new-macbooks-to-be-cooled-with-water-from-melting-polar-ice-caps/
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