Cooling Blankets

A blanket set to about 70 to 75 degrees would work, but how to cool it without a noisy compressor? Would the blanket material have to be thermally conductive. I know it's the air spaces that insulates in a regular blanket, do you just try to get rid of those. Thinking on it I'm sure you could use some sort of endothermic reaction to keep it cool, that would be quiet.

Use a PCM with latent heat of fusion @ 70~75C. Fill the air with PCMs having good thermal conductivity than air. A blanket filled with wax like material will do. The rest of the energy can be dissipated by convection and radiation. This will work. No compressor needed.

Since your electric blanket has a cord and element inside it, too, why not weave a a tube around in the blanket as the new "cooling element" and run the ends to an aquarium pump? Hook the aquarium pump and feed it fluid from your IGLOO 12volt cooler that chills the fluid quietly. Cold fluid runs over you all night. To keep from direct contact with the tube, sandwich it in the fabric as you would a heating element. Voila!!

Sorry, I wasn't logged in. This cooling blanket entry was mine. I'm no anonymous coward. I'm a public one.

Great Posting! Lady Stealth, This question is up there with the riddle of all time, namely, "has anyone ever made a working perpetual motion machine?" Sure, Colonel Congrieve's wet sponge belt was one contender. He may have inspired the American National Anthem inadvertantly(another tale) Peltier heat pumps could do it at a financial and energy input cost. Let us assume we have solved the problem, A box is made employing this magical material and two thermometors used to measure the temperature inside the box and outside. The Nobel Prize comittee are called. The box always remains cooler inside than out. Just like an electical diode, heat passes through this material in only, or preferentially, one direction. Investigations of this nature are often rich in spin off concepts, though the mountain remains unscaled. OK let's make a fool of myself, This box, I explain with a wide grin to the Nobel Prize folk, has an evacuated space between the inner and outer wall. Those Professors remain poker faced, even slightly irritated at being called out on a wild goose chase! I show them a sample of my gold plated and perforated thin pure silver sheet, and draw their attention to the embossed fresnell mirror profile of this sheet material, One Professor yawns, as I try to explan that gold reflects best in the infrared, and that silver is a good conductor of heat. Passing a magnifying glass to the Professor who seems to be constantly looking at his watch, I try to point out the little black dots raised on tiny little spikes. These spikes I confidently tell him coincide and poke through the perforations. Heat I try to explain, is conducted through the silver and is preferentially radiated by the black dots. Slightly intimidated by such an august audience, I carry on; This infrared radiation, I less confidently explain, is focussed constantly forward towards successive holes in multiple layers, reflected onward and outward by these fresnell mirrors, focused at the subsequent perforations. They are not impressed. "May we take your two thermometers away with us for calibration" the poker faced Professor asks. "By all means" I answer. "There will be no charge" says the Professor who looked at his watch. "Oh thank you" I say, "All this equipment has cost rather a lot and I hoped you might not charge for this visit" The Nobel Professor responds "I meant, charge for calibrating the thermometer, not our visit" They leave, all nodding their heads in unison and muttering things I can't quite hear.

When I was recovering from a liver transplant in 1994 the hospital placed a cooling blanket on me to help bring down a minor temperature I had. How the cryotherapy blanket worked I have no idea. I assumed it pumped coolent through vinyl tubes imbedded in the blanket. Felt good. Fred

Consider of the electronics equipment that build heat up, then one use allumunium heat sink to transfer the heat to the surrounding. Why not grab the idea to make such blanket with allumunium as the main content, but still maintain its flexibility and mildness. Don't forget to make the outer side texture rough, as it will have broader area of blanket-air contact.

I think a natural wicking material and water creates a cooling blanket....evaporation...its been done and its effective.

Lady_Stealth writes: ...I have wondered if anyone in the engineering (science) field has thought of a "cooling blanket"? The heating blanket was a big hit......

I assume that she is referring to the item commonly called an "electric blanket" which is used for personal heating in the home. There are two main types, the smaller heating "pad", usually made of plastic with a cloth cover, or the larger woven blanket that is interlaced with tiny ceramic heating elements. In both cases the heat is generated by electrically resistive heating elements. Since this is an irreversible process, i.e. you cannot put heat into the element and get out electricity, and it is not bi-polar in nature, i.e. where you have both a hot-point and a cold-point as in a Peltier effect device, it would not be possible to fashion a thermo-electric "cooling blanket".

That said, there are alternatives, as noted already. As an Air Force medic over 25 years ago I operated a "heating/cooling blanket" that used tiny tubes to circulate a fluid (water, I believe) that could be either chilled or heated. This would be a little cumbersome for home use.

Peltier effect devices have been used successfully in many consumer items, most notably in the "electric cooler" or "portable refrigerator". These devices are bi-polar in nature, having both a "hot-side" and a "cold-side". It might be possible to mount multiple small Peltier junction devices in a strong flexible material, possibly Mylar. One side would have a cooling effect and the other would have a heating effect. In order to maximize efficiency and maintain body contact through added weight, another layer might be added to maximize infrared radiation and/or convection cooling of the "hot-side" layer. This would be powered by DC electricity, either from a battery pack or 12VDC car cord, or by conversion from a 120 VAC "Wall wort" power supply.

Is there anything on the market like that? I have never seen it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist!

Peltier effect devices

I have just read that a research company is experimenting with using this effect in something like a plastic or polymer film. They could make a blanket or jacket with such a material and the wearer would not even have to sweat to keep cool. Reverse the flow of electricity and it could then provide warmth.

Hi Lady, The cooling jackets have been there for a long time now. During Operation Desert Storm, soldiers were heated up so army came up with a wearable jaket/ tube under the shirt near the abdomen area which was filled wiuth compressed air which provided the soldiers the AC they needed I suppppose you want to visit the US database of army for the same Regards Manmeet India

Years ago, I did a little research in solar energy, and I found out that Sandia Labs had produced the most efficient black body coating, but it was very, very expensive! I figured, what the hell, when energy's free, why worry so much about efficiency? I built some solar collectors out of galvanized steel roofing and soldered copper pipes to them and painted everything flat black. Never bothered to measure the efficiency, but they got hot as hell.

The idea of welding channels in a couple of layers of vinyl and circulating cold water through them ain't a bad idea. Instead of plugging the cooling blanket into a power outlet, plug it into an ice chest with water and a little pump inside. The size of the chest should be large enough to last 'til morning, unless you like the idea of waking up at 3 AM because you're sleeping under a warm vinyl blanket. Invent one. I'll buy it.

Almost too simple. Either just turn the plug around, or lie on the othe rside of the blanket.

It's like the datasheet that Monsanto released on their Darkness Emitting Arsenide Diodes many years ago - just pump current through a DEAD and it emits darkness. Just be careful to not run too much current through it or a really big area can suddenly have the light sucked out of it. 8^)

The government is already developing this technology to be used under body armor to keep the soldiers core temperature down. I believe what they had in mind was a small pump with a tube running through the material filled with a chemical that stays cold longer, kinda like those gel packs you put in the freezer I would imagine. The garment is stored in a freezer and as it thaws the pump is turned on to draw the heat outside of the armor to be cooled by the air.

I have a sleep number bed that is roasting me on the bottom and freezing me on the top and freezing my husband all together. Any ideas what we can do. I am looking for a cooling pad for under zip on top to the mattress. Sleep number assured me when I purchased the bed that it would not do this to me but they weren't truthful. They have no ideas now what to do so I can sleep again. (after they got my money)

Thanks

Vickey

Try a Cool-or-Heat cooling/heating pad: http://www.coolorheat.com/index.html