How Immersion Cooling Works?

Immersion liquid cooling is a typical direct contact liquid cooling. It immerses the heating electronic components in the refrigerant (cooling liquid), and relies on the liquid flow to circulate the heat away.

Immersion liquid cooling is in direct contact with the heating element and the refrigerant in all directions, and its heat dissipation efficiency is higher than that of traditional heat dissipation methods: air cooling and water cooling, its heat dissipation efficiency is higher; compared with cold plate or spray liquid cooling, its noise lower.

At present, immersion liquid cooling is mainly divided into two-phase liquid cooling and single-phase liquid cooling, so what do they represent?

1. Two-phase liquid cooling

The cooling liquid undergoes a phase change during the circulation heat dissipation process. The cooling liquid takes away the heat from the electronic components and undergoes a phase change to gasify. The gaseous cooling liquid is condensed by other equipment and becomes liquid again.

Two-phase liquid cooling has a high heat transfer efficiency due to the phase change of the cooling liquid. The disadvantage is that during this phase change process, the cooling liquid will escape when it evaporates into a gaseous state, so there are certain requirements for the sealing of the container; But it can't be too sealed to prevent accidents due to interruption of the cooling system, so certain safety facilities need to be set up.

2. Single-phase liquid cooling

The coolant remains in a liquid state during the circulation and heat dissipation process without phase change.

After the low-temperature coolant takes away the heat, the temperature rises, and the elevated coolant flows to other areas and re-cools to complete the cycle;

Single-phase liquid cooling requires a higher boiling point of the cooling liquid, so that the control of cooling liquid volatilization and loss is relatively simple, and the compatibility with IT equipment components is relatively good, and there is no need for frequent replenishment of cooling liquid; however, compared with two-phase liquid cooling, its heat dissipation efficiency is higher. lower.

At present, server clusters (IDC data centers) usually use two-phase liquid cooling in the form of immersion liquid cooling, while PC desktops generally use single-phase liquid cooling in the form of immersion liquid cooling.

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