Immersion cooling as the next technology for data center cooling: A review

Abstract

The utility of the world internet is on the rise as it is recorded that 46% of the world's population have become internet users who generates data traffic of up to 8 zettabytes daily. This increase has triggered the growth of data center infrastructure as processing, storage and communication system in the digital world. The data center itself has contributed 1.5% to the total world electricity consumption and this is expected to increase with time. The proportion of energy used in the data center covers 52% for information technology (IT) equipment, 38% for cooling and 10% for supporting devices. One of the problems faced by these centers over the years is the cooling of the information technology (IT) components. This paper describes a cooling model that has the potential to improve the efficiency of energy used in data centers. Numerous studies have been carried out and one of them involves the use of immersion cooling technique as it promises improvements in the energy efficiency of data centers, using dielectric fluids that have high heat capacity. Several types of fluid used in this method are identified and discussed in this paper.