Gizmorama - March 30, 2015

Good Morning,

Looking for a new way to heat your home? It looks like computer servers are being used as heaters to lower energy costs. Is there anything computers can't do?

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Energy company Eneco is heating homes with computer servers --*
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (UPI) - Dutch energy company Eneco is installing computer servers in a select few homes in an effort to curb energy costs. The radiator-sized servers were developed by a small start-up company called Nerdalize.

As most computer users know, the machines give off energy in the form of heat. This is true of small laptops, and it is true of supercomputers. Computer servers, which offer computing power remotely, give off a considerable amount of heat while performing their hundreds of thousands of daily calculations.

Officials with Eneco and Nerdalize believe that heat can be used to warm up living rooms during cold months. As part of a field study, the companies recently installed five of their radiator servers in family homes. They expect each server to shave as much as $440 off the families' annual heating bills. The study will last through the end of 2015. Afterwards, officials with the companies will decide whether the venture is successful enough to expand.

"This is the first time the design radiator with built-in server is installed in ordinary households," Eneco officials wrote in a press release. "The servers shall perform complex calculations for a variety of companies and knowledge institutes, such as new medicine-related research for Leiden University Medical Center."

As the server provides data, information or any hardware and software resources to its various clients, its radiated heat will warm the room and diminish the home's reliance on traditional heating systems.

Eneco will cover the additional electricity costs. But the two companies don't believe they'll be at a loss. They expect their arrangement to reduce server maintenance costs by 30 to 55 percent.

The servers will heat a closed water system. A knob will control how much heat is released and distributed throughout the room while a pipe leading outside will allow the system to spill excess heat -- an essential component for the summer months.

The business model will negate the need for a central location, and eliminate the cost of cooling required by multi-server datacenters.

Entrepreneurs in France and Germany are also attempting to house cloud computing services in private homes.


*-- Researchers develop non-toxic antifreeze --*
POMONA, Calif. (UPI) - Every year, some 90,000 pets and wild animals are poisoned by antifreeze. In 2012, 6,000 people were poisoned by the substance, many of them children.

In unsuspecting hands, the sweet taste and smell of the toxic liquid can entice one to imbibe. And that's bad news.

"Ethylene glycol, the predominant constituent of automotive products, such as antifreeze and deicers, is chemically broken down in the body into toxic compounds," Edward V. Clancy, professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University, in Pomona, explained in a recent press release. "It and its toxic byproducts first affect the central nervous system, then the heart and finally the kidneys. Drinking sufficient amounts can be fatal."

Clancy also serves as chief technology officer and founder of ACTA Technology, a group that's been developing non-toxic alternatives to ethylene glycol-based antifreeze.

Specifically, Clancy and his colleagues have been working to a adapt a substance called propylene glycol for motor vehicles. Propylene glycol is a food additive -- which is "generally recognized as safe" by the USDA -- commonly used to absorb moisture and stabilize food compounds.

Propylene glycol is already used for its antifreeze properties in factories involved in food production, where a toxic leak could be a serious liability, but its thick, syrupy consistency makes it a poor substitute for the antifreeze used in car systems.

Clancy's team, however, has come up with a way to thin out propylene glycol. By injecting the substance with a solution of nanoparticles, the engineers at ACTA were able to make the liquid less viscous -- without compromising its eco-friendly, safe-to-consume nature.

"Our additive creates a stable dispersion of high surface area, pyrogenic metal oxide particles," Clancy said. "This high surface area seems to be functionally critical to the superior heat transfer performance."

When they tested the new substance, the researchers found that propylene glycol had superior heat transfer abilities -- able to cool car engines 60 percent more efficiently than traditional formulas.

"Because ACTA's patented propylene glycol/water mixture with our additive increases the heat transfer of the flow systems, vehicle manufacturers could make these systems smaller," Clancy said. "A smaller radiator would result in a lighter car, thereby increasing fuel economy and cutting emissions."'

Clancy and his team are scheduled to share their breakthrough with attendees at this week's American Chemical Society meeting in Denver, Colorado.

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