Iceotopes Cools University of Leeds 

Server cooling company Iceotopes has been experimenting and developing a system that uses unique materials such as Novec to propagate heat transfer.

After demonstrating the prototypes at a Cebit trade show in Germany almost a year ago, the company has spent the interim determining how to mass-produce the cooled server racks.

That effort has paid off as they recently announced their first customer. The University of Leeds is reportedly using Iceotope technology since December to run computational fluid dynamics models and to warm laboratory radiators.

The cooled racks operate using an inert cooling liquid called Novec from 3M. The Novec reportedly works by shifting the server’s heat from the motherboard to the surface via convection as opposed to using fans.

Such an approach brings about significant efficiency gains, as the temperature of the water coming out of the system is a full 15 degrees lower than it usually is. "We're looking at a water temperature of 50 to 55 C from the back of the system going into the radiators, which are normally expecting 70 C," said Jon Summers, senior lecturer at the University of Leeds.

As a result, the radiator system at the university outputs 1.7 kW of power as opposed to 2.5 kW before they were running an Iceotope system.

"We are trying to understand what flow rates we need to operate it at and the external circuit that best matches the performance of the system. We've been running some heavy computational loads to generate that heat," said Summers.

Such a heating and cooling structure allows their data center to run at about 95 percent utilization, one of the higher utilization rates in modern data centers.

To add to this efficiency boost, a PhD student at the university is being sponsored by Iceotope to further optimize the facility’s heating and cooling operation along with improving the heating efficiency in the laboratory in the winter.

However, upgrading the server system may prove difficult, as it will be coated in cooling liquids and aluminum. Iceotope CEO Neil Bennett believes that will not be a problem.

"Refilling is possible, but nobody has requested it yet," said Bennett. "We are encouraging customers to put a lot of memory in from day one. It's not something a customer can just put a new DIMM in."