Brialliant and Practical Device From Bill Gate's Innovation Laboratory

[KathyV]

This is both brilliant and inspirational! There is an Innovation Laboratory in Seattle, WA sponsored by Bill Gates, that has recently engineered a device called Indigo that maintains vaccines at optimum temperature for several days without using electricity, ice, or batteries; thus making it practical to administer them to remote populations.

Pictures and videos of the device in field use here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzeILXKwe74

More details here --
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/The-big-chill?WT.mc_id=06_13_2018_10_VaccinesColdChain_BG-YT_&WT.tsrc=BGYT

 

[KeithG]

This is both brilliant and inspirational! There is an Innovation Laboratory in Seattle, WA sponsored by Bill Gates, that has recently engineered a device called Indigo that maintains vaccines at optimum temperature for several days without using electricity, ice, or batteries; thus making it practical to administer them to remote populations.

Pictures and videos of the device in field use here -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzeILXKwe74

More details here --
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/The-big-chill?WT.mc_id=06_13_2018_10_VaccinesColdChain_BG-YT_&WT.tsrc=BGYT

There is no free lunch. Physics is a bitch.

The first item Bill talks about is obviously electrically powered: "MetaFridge has a hidden superpower: it keeps vaccines cold without power for at least five days. The electrical components are designed to keep working through power surges and brown-outs."

The description of the second item "Indigo" is much more "fuzzy". It appears to require an untalked about "a super cooling infrastructure" (my words) in order to get it cold enough to work.

Lets not get too excited about marketing blurbs...

 

[gr8jab]

There is no free lunch. Physics is a bitch.

The first item Bill talks about is obviously electrically powered: "MetaFridge has a hidden superpower: it keeps vaccines cold without power for at least five days. The electrical components are designed to keep working through power surges and brown-outs."

The description of the second item "Indigo" is much more "fuzzy". It appears to require an untalked about "a super cooling infrastructure" (my words) in order to get it cold enough to work.

Lets not get too excited about marketing blurbs...

I don't see these as magic. If you leave behind the marketing hash and junk, they are a simple design. Highly efficient heat pipes have been used for a very long time. All mobile computers use low-pressure passive circulation heat transfer systems exactly like these larger devices. In a mobile PC, they move energy away from CPUs inside densely packed portable computers to the edge of the case where a fan and small radiator can expel the energy into the air.

The MetaFridge is just an ice box, like used in the olden days. An insulated block of ice used to last 5-7 days before being replenished by a delivery man. The MetaFridge just refreezes the block when it power is on. The cool part (pun intended) is the heat pipe they designed to properly regulate the flow of energy out of the vaccine storage area into the slowly melting block of ice.

The Indogo is just a huge heat pipe. It uses evaporative cooling to move energy from inside to outside the system (just like your car's AC). In your car, the compressor provides the required pressure difference. The Indogo only works as long as the pressure differential is sufficient to evaporate the water, which is regulated by a valve. The 'recharge with heat' is logical too. You probably flip some valves open/closed and heat the thing up, then flip the valves back before it cools. Once it cools, you have pressure differential ready to start cooling again. It's a simple single-cycle compressor. It's been a while since I took thermodynamics, so the only thing I'm not sure of is how much pressure and volume you need to achieve a useful cooling cycle.