With many emerging capabilities in pervasive computing, internet access, wireless communication, and data processing, the smartphone with high central processing unit (CPU) frequency is achieving extremely high running speed which also brings about discomfort to the users due to huge heat released. Here, an automatic temperature regulation strategy using low melting point metal gallium to absorb transitory heat was proposed for the first time. Experiments demonstrate that 3.4125 ml gallium would maintain the module below 45 °C for 16 min at 2.832 W. Such temperature holding time was longer than most of the conventional phase change materials (PCMs). Moreover, some interesting phase change phenomena were also discovered such that mixing SiO2 powder with gallium or just shaking the liquid metal container will help reduce the large supercooling of gallium which is beneficial for the material to quickly recover to its original service state again. The method is expected to be very useful and efficient in maintaining thermal comfort of many handheld electronics, especially for the burgeoning smartphones and panel personal computer (PPC).
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Keeping Smartphones Cool With Gallium Phase Change Material
Haoshan Ge,
Haoshan Ge
Key Laboratory of Cryogenics,
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100190
, PRC
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Jing Liu
Jing Liu
1
Key Laboratory of Cryogenics,
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
e-mail: jliu@mail.ipc.ac.cn
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100190
, PRC
;Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Tsinghua University
,Beijing 100084
, PRC
e-mail: jliu@mail.ipc.ac.cn
1Correspondence author.
Search for other works by this author on:
Haoshan Ge
Key Laboratory of Cryogenics,
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100190
, PRC
Jing Liu
Key Laboratory of Cryogenics,
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Department of Biomedical Engineering,
e-mail: jliu@mail.ipc.ac.cn
Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing 100190
, PRC
;Department of Biomedical Engineering,
Tsinghua University
,Beijing 100084
, PRC
e-mail: jliu@mail.ipc.ac.cn
1Correspondence author.
Contributed by the Heat Transfer Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF HEAT TRANSFER. Manuscript received May 18, 2012; final manuscript received December 27, 2012; published online April 11, 2013. Assoc. Editor: W. Q. Tao.
J. Heat Transfer. May 2013, 135(5): 054503 (5 pages)
Published Online: April 11, 2013
Article history
Received:
May 18, 2012
Revision Received:
December 27, 2012
Citation
Ge, H., and Liu, J. (April 11, 2013). "Keeping Smartphones Cool With Gallium Phase Change Material." ASME. J. Heat Transfer. May 2013; 135(5): 054503. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4023392
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