Vapochill Micro - Gas heat pipe cooler

More and more data is available about the Vapochill Micro CPU cooling manufactured by Asetek, so we came across the rather astonishing fact that their heat pipe cooler runs on gas.

A schematic diagram showing the structure of the new chiller has become available on the manufacturer’s side. This figure shows that the Asetek radiator is very different from the heat pipe solutions on the market, as the heat pipe does not contain water but gas. The gas r134a (C2H2F4), which experts may know is the same as the material in refrigerators.

The interesting thing is that, as you can read above, all known solutions on the market work with water. Our guess so far is that the most likely reason for this may be cost reduction. Vapochill Micro already differs significantly in appearance from the heat pipe coolers seen so far, as the diameter of the pipes hidden under the slats is much larger than usual. Now at least we know why.

Although the method of heat removal is the same as that of the aqueous solution, the use of gas seems to have required a different, unique design. According to many, the aqueous solutions are sufficiently efficient, however, r134a already has a very low boiling point, i.e. evaporation starts quickly, thus heat removal. Of course, the fact that the gaseous solution is theoretically more efficient than the wet one does not mean that the efficiency can be properly put into practice, but there is a chance that we will encounter more efficient cooling than before.

In the table below, r134a (C2H2F4) gas evaporation temperatures at different pressures. Unfortunately, we do not have data on the pressure in the Vapochill Micro, but we suspect that this will be kept secret by the manufacturer.

On the operation of heat pipe coolers a Refrigeration Academy - Heat Tube Cooling You can read more in our article.