Air Conditioners

Heating and cooling systems are among the biggest guzzlers of energy. Berkeley Lab has now developed a new technology that heats and cools by switching a material between solid and liquid states, inducing a large temperature change from a small voltage.

Gases used as refrigerants in cooling systems can leak into the atmosphere and become major contributors to climate change. Now engineers at Harvard have demonstrated a new prototype cooling device that uses a solid-state material as a refrigerant.

Israeli company Green Kinoko is preparing for the first public tests of a remarkable clean outdoor cooling system. The Kinsho system operates like the inverse of an outdoor cafe heater, cooling several tables per unit without using any electricity.

Maltese startup Magtor is starting to gain worldwide attention for a new linear compressor design that pumps in both directions. The Magtorpressor's radical efficiency over today's tech could make it a key weapon in the fight against climate change.

A team of scientists has been developing an alternative to air conditioning called the Cold Tube, which works by absorbing body heat emitted from a person and uses around half the energy of traditional systems as a result.

The man behind the Feher ACH-1 air-conditioned motorcycle helmet, as well as luxury cooling car seats, has gone a step further and built an air conditioned baseball cap designed to keep your noggin between 12° and 22° F (7° and 12° C) cooler.

For those times when the outdoors is too hot or too cold, the easiest way to find respite is to dash inside. But what if that's not an option? Sony thinks it has the answer with the Reon Pocket air conditioner, which it's crowdfunding through its own First Flight acceleration program.

A German research team has prototyped an extraordinary heating/cooling system that stresses and unloads nickel-titanium "muscle wires" to create heated and cooled air at twice the efficiency of a heat pump or three times the efficiency of an air conditioner.

Beginning with the principles of the Stirling engine, SoundEnergy's THEAC thermal acoustic engine takes heat - either industrial waste heat or solar heat - and turns it into powerful cooling without requiring any other power source. This completely renewable technology could prove highly disruptive.

Launched this month, the Global Cooling Prize is a competition to help stop runaway climate change, by dangling US$3 million in prize money for the development of more energy-efficient cooling solutions. ​

Researchers have paired a cooling system that draws thermal heat from a building and beams it into space with a solar panel, designing a system with the same rooftop footprint that ccould generate electricity and passively cool a building at the same time.

​Steve Feher wants to cool motorcyclists' heads, using the same technology he invented to cool drivers' butts. The Feher helmet is the world's first fully integrated air conditioned motorcycle helmet, and it claims to keep your head 10-15 degrees cooler than the outside world.