Re: What is the best solution for microscopy room cooling?

Posted by Craig Brideau on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/What-is-the-best-solution-for-microscopy-room-cooling-tp7582697p7582698.html

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If you have access to chilled water in your building, you can use heat
pumps to draw heat from the room and dump it into the water flow. Just make
sure the chilled water loop has sufficient capacity to not get overwhelmed.
Water is always a better heat exchange medium if you can get access to it.

Craig Brideau

On Wed, Oct 1, 2014 at 10:03 AM, Oliver Biehlmaier <
[hidden email]> wrote:

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> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> Dear all,
>
> Around the end of 2018 our light microscopy facility will move into a new
> building. Even though the date of the move is still quite far in the
> future, I have to provide the planners with numbers. Whereas the number of
> electronic and internet plugs as well as IT connection speed etc is no
> problem, it seems to be quite difficult to find an adequate solution for
> room cooling / air conditioning.
> I searched the list for the topic and only found a thread from 2009. As
> this is a quite important issue for any microscopy facility, I’d like to
> take the opportunity to ask for some feedback and if possible images of
> your solutions. All comments on what to do and what definitely not to do
> are very welcome!
>
> The new Biozentrum building will be a low-energy-consumption building
> (Minergie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minergie) which means that there
> will only be a minimal exchange of air in the rooms.
> The new rooms will be approx. 20sqm large (215 square foot) and I am
> planning to put 3 systems max. into each room. A confocal with an argon
> laser generates approx. 4kW, so in a worst case scenario we will have to be
> able to cope with 12kW/room. Referring to this calculation, I told the
> planners that we will need 15kW of cooling capacity per microscope room.
>
> So far the planners offered 2 solutions for cooling:
>
> 1) the conventional convection cooling solution:  3 big boxes at the
> ceiling, each with a center inlet and 4 surrounding lamellar outlets
> => very loud, cool air “falling down”, difficult to reach homogeneous
> temperature distribution.
>
> 2) a more sophisticated version: based on roller-type fans with long
> textile tube outlets
> This solution can be combined with a diffusor covering the entire room
> ceiling thereby providing a more homogeneous air distribution and less
> noise.
> However, to accomplish this, we will have to agree to a room height of
> 230cm (7.55ft). Except for our 2PH system this should not be a problem.
> I think that solution 2) could be a reasonable solution.
>
> Please let me know how you solved your room cooling, especially in
> relation to low-energy-consumption buildings with little air volume
> exchange.
>
> Cheers,
> Oliver
>
>
> Oliver Biehlmaier, PhD | Head of Imaging Core Facility  | Biozentrum,
> University of Basel | Klingelbergstrasse 50/70 | CH-4056 Basel
> Phone: [phone] | Email: [hidden email] |
> www.biozentrum.unibas.ch | www.microscopynetwork.unibas.ch
>