A design proposed by ESD MPhil students Jerrell Ong and Sebastian Lindner-Liaw, working with colleague Eric Tay, has the potential to reduce the energy costs and water consumption involved in cooling data centres in the Global South.
The design by Terracotta Cooling would make use of locally sourced and produced terracotta cylinders to aid in cooling large data centres in countries such as India and South-East Asia, which operate in equatorial climates.
Terracotta Cooling secured a runner-up position in the 2024 Cambridge Climate Challenge, an eight-week innovation competition for early career researchers.
For more details, see the Department of Engineering news article here.