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Even today, more than 70 crore people around the world live in areas where there is no reliable electricity facility. In such a situation, dealing with the scorching heat and protecting food items from spoiling becomes a big challenge. Scientists of Saudi Arabia have found a very unique and perfect solution to this serious problem. He has developed a new cooling technology which does not require any electricity to work. This entire system works only on the basis of salt, water and sunlight.
Fridge-like coolness in just 20 minutes
This indigenous and unique technology has been developed by researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, which has been named ‘NESCOD’ (No Electricity and Sustainable Cooling on Demand). When it was tested in the lab, its results were very shocking. This system reduced the temperature of a normal mixture of 25 degrees Celsius to 3.6 degrees Celsius in just 20 minutes. Not only this, this severe coldness remained below 15 degrees Celsius for more than the next 15 hours, which is considered equal to the cooling of any normal refrigerator. This entire project has been carried out by researcher Wenbin Wang under the leadership of Professor Peng Wang.
Scientific magic of salt and water
Now you must be wondering how can just salt and water provide such coolness without electricity? In the language of science, this magical process is called “endothermic dissolution”. To understand in simple words, when certain types of salts are dissolved in water, they absorb all the heat of their surrounding environment to dissolve. As soon as the surrounding heat is absorbed, the temperature there starts falling rapidly and severe cold is generated.
Scientists tried many types of salts for this experiment, but ammonium nitrate proved to be the most powerful. Its cooling capacity was seen to be four times more than that of normal ammonium chloride, because it dissolves very quickly and in large quantities in water, due to which the cooling effect also increases many times.
It will be easier to keep food and medicines
This technology will directly benefit those areas where there is a huge problem of power cuts. During testing, when this salt solution was kept in a metal cup inside a special insulated box, it kept the temperature inside the box cool for a long time. This clearly indicates that with the help of this technology, food items, fruits, vegetables and life-saving vaccines can be stored safely for a long time even without electricity in remote villages and towns.
This ‘fridge’ recharges itself with sunlight
Often chemical based cooling systems become useless once used, but this is not at all the case with NESCOD. Its biggest feature is that it can be recycled again and again. When the temperature of this solution becomes normal again, the scientists place it in a cup-shaped ‘solar regenerator’. This device heats the solution by absorbing sunlight, due to which the water evaporates and the salt crystals are saved again at the bottom. These crystals are collected and used again for cooling next time. The interesting thing is that the flying steam can also be reused by converting it into water, which is no less than a boon for water-scarce areas.
Future path and big challenges
In this era of global warming where air conditioners and refrigerators consume a lot of electricity, this technology can become a great cheap option for both the environment and the pocket. However, this amazing technology still faces some challenges. At present, this experiment is limited only to the lab level and its commercial production on a large scale is yet to happen. Apart from this, strict rules are applicable in many countries on the ammonium nitrate used in it because it is also used in making explosives. Scientists have not yet given any fixed date for its launch in the market, so it may take some time for this magical cooling system to reach the general public.
