Immersion Cooling is a technique used to cool components of IT equipment that consists of submerging the computer components in a thermally conductive and dielectric liquid. Through this practice, the servers are cooled and heat is transferred from the source to the liquid.
When we talk about Immersion Cooling, we also need to discuss the different types of Immersion Cooling, as well as the applications of Immersion cooling. The practice of Immersion Cooling has a multitude of benefits particularly as it allows datacenters to be managed in a greener and more sustainable manner. Environmental concerns has been a huge catalyst for the adoption of the technology in recent years.
At Submer, we believe in green datacenters. Our solutions are powered by Immersion Cooling, and more specifically single-phase Immersion Cooling. Below you will learn more about Immersion cooling and its benefits, whether you are new to the technique or consider yourself a pro, read on to discover something new!
The basics of Immersion Cooling
To better understand what Immersion Cooling can do for datacenters, we need to clarify what is Immersion Cooling, why we should apply Immersion Cooling and how the technology works.
What Immersion Cooling really means
As we already mentioned, Immersion Cooling is a method that is slowly becoming popular with innovative datacenters. But what makes the technique so popular and what’s the difference?
So, why Immersion Cooling?
Immersion Cooling could be the smart choice from an operations perspective and also from a practical perspective. Why?
Immersion Cooling simplifies datacenter commissioning.
Cooling simplifies datacenter maintenance.
With Immersion Cooling the deployment
is faster and simpler.
Furthermore, Immersion cooling for datacenters makes sense from an environmental perspective, an area that is of increasing concern for the industry.
Acording to the Europen Comission, by 2020 data centers used to consume about 2% of the world’s electricity. By 2030 is expected this percentage grows up to 8%.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 28% of the water use in office buildings is for the cooling and heating system.
In what we consider a conventional datacenter, the amount of potable water consumed per year is up to 464,242,900.6992 litres.
The benefits of Immersion Cooling
The practice of Immersion cooling has a huge number of benefits, especially when it comes to sustainability and efficiency. Why is this important? These are two of the biggest challenges that the industry must overcome, right now and in the future. Immersion cooling significantly reduces the amount of water used, levels of carbon emissions, and much more.
Immersion cooling is scalable and modular
Overcome the challenges of space and scalability by implementing Immersion cooling within your infrastructure.
Immersion cooling can help to reduce the carbon footprint of your datacenter
Traditional datacenters use a high amount of fossil fuels to help power their cooling systems. Immersion requires significantly less power to run and to cool the IT servers and equipment, significantly reducing the amount of CO2 produced.
Immersion cooling can help to improve your efficiency and reduce the use of natural resources
A smart datacenter should be able to tap into clean and renewable energy sources. By using Immersion cooling, you are able to utilize high-power computing that is resilient and secure, without putting a strain on the environment. At Submer we harness the power of single-phase Immersion cooling to enable our customers to turn their potential burden on the environment into a benefit. In March 2020, Submer announced the installation of 10 SmartPod units delivering up to 500kW of heat dissipation at a neutral datacenter BitNap (Barcelona, Spain). This is the first sustainable Liquid Immersion Cooling cluster in Spain to rely on renewable energies as a secondary cooling system, BitNAP is a part of the district heating and cooling (DHC) system operated by Ecoenergies.
“This is the first of many examples to come of real symbiosis between datacenters, renewable energies, smart technology and a truly viable industrial application”.
Daniel Pope
Co-founder and CEO of Submer
Check here to see in detail the Benefits of Immersion Cooling.
Types of immersion cooling
The main options that we have to cool datacenters are air conditioning, direct to chip and liquid cooling. Depending on the technique chosen, datacenters will be better or worse equipped to face challenges in terms of performance, density, efficiency, space and sustainability.
At Submer we are most interested in Liquid cooling since we believe that this is the best way to achieve higher levels of efficiency.
There are a few different types of Liquid cooling, including Immersion cooling. There are two different methods of Immersion cooling on the market. The names of the two different methods are Single-Phase Immersion Cooling and Two-Phase Immersion Cooling. So, what are the differences between single-phase and two-phase Immersion?
Single-Phase Immersion Cooling
- Single-Phase coolant never changes state, it never boils or freezes and always remains in a liquid form.
- Easier to access.
- Does not require a high level of maintenance.
Two-Phase Immersion Cooling
- In two-phase cooling, the working fluid boils and thus exists in both a liquid and gas phase.
- Complex to access.
- Requieres more maintenance.
Submer’s Immersion Cooling solutions are based on single-phase Immersion cooling. The main reason we chose this technique is that it better aligns with our core values of sustainability and having a positive impact on the environment. How? single-phase Immersion cooling allows use a biodegradable, non-toxic, non-flammable, non-corrosive liquid that has a life span that is longer than the average life of many datacenters.
Immersion cooling: the fluid
The reason behind why immersion cooling is more efficient than air cooling is, among others, because of the fluid. Why? The liquid is the key to how heat is conducted. The choice of liquid is fundamental if the full benefits of Immersion cooling are to be achieved.
There are two types of dielectric liquids, deionized water and dielectric fluids. Dielectric fluids are based on hydrocarbon compounds. The compounds can be from vegetable oils, mineral oils, fluorocarbons or other synthetic fluids. Dielectric liquids are classified depending on whether they are used within single-phase or two-phase immersion cooling.
What type of fluid is best for Immersion cooling?
The following 5 questions will help you to understand which liquid is the most appropriate one for you:
- Which of these liquids will be compatible with my IT hardware?
- Which will be safe and easy to work with?
- Which one has the longest life-span?
- Will the liquid
