Experimental investigation on bio-mimic transpiration cooling for high-end handheld devices

The fast increase in functionalities of handheld microelectronics devices results in more heat dissipation from the surface. The maximum amount of heat that can be dissipated passively is becoming the bottleneck. In this paper, a biomimetic transpiration cooling technique (BMTC) that may overcome this passive cooling limit is researched. By using a biomimetic skin capable of perspiration on demand, it may effectively cool the surface of microelectronics device. The key component of the biomimetic skin is a thin layer of temperature sensitive hydro gel (TSHG) which can sweat the skin with moisture when the skin temperature is higher than the TSHG's lower critical solution temperature (LCST), and thus boost the heat dissipation rate through evaporation. With this passive cooling technology, a handheld device potentially can be powered to run a desktop operation system fluently. Cooling performance of TSHG is investigated by experiment and some results is presented.