Akanksha is the person who first made the idea of cooling a building using hydrogels realavent to us. With her help, we have been able to make some progress with our experimentation.

 

Recently, we have been emailing with Akanksha, asking some questions. Here is what she had to say:

 

 

Q: We were wondering if the polymer in your hydrogels was similar to the one in the hydrogels we are using. 
A: Yes, they are similar. There might be slight differences in behaviour because of manufacturing but we too used the cross linked acrylic polymer of spherical shapes.


Q: We are collecting data with the hydrogels directly exposed to the air, rather than embedded in a container of some sort. You can see our set-up in the attached picture - the hydrated hydrogels are placed on porcelain micro-chemistry spot plates. Did you find that covering/enclosing the hydrogels was necessary? 
A: Well I would not call it necessary but in your case the porcelain plates are the containers. Its important what the hydrogel is touching and how they are installed for instance you may want to have them vertical or even upside down because in your current set-up the porcelain will cool way faster than the air in the room and that will make the hydrogel lose water but not cool the room temp. It is maybe the volume of air you want to target or identify the warmest parts of the room and design accordingly.

Q: Is there a limit to how many times an individual sphere can can be re-hydrated without becoming ineffective? 
A: I believe there will be a limit eventually but we didn't quite encounter that limit and we were working with them almost a year I think unless they break you are ok.