THE TECH
Photo courtesy of CapTherm Systems
I
f you’ve never dropped your smartphone 10 feet onto pavement, left it in a cab, or witnessed it being accidentally knocked into a hotel room toilet bowl, you may still have the utmost faith in the genius of those ubiquitous uber-gadgets. But if you have seen the world grind down to slow motion as your expensive holder of relevant personal information is about to be submerged in water without anything you can do to stop it, you may have developed a semi-healthy case of phone paranoia. Such was not the case when Philipp Fuhrmann, CoFounder and COO of the early-stage Canadian company CapTherm Systems, willfully dunked his iPhone into the proprietary coolant fluid the company developed for its multiphase electronics cooling system. “Our machinist then called him while the iPhone was submerged, and it was still fine,” said Timo Minx, Co-Founder and CEO of CapTherm. Minx is also the inventor of the company’s multiphase, liquid-to-vapor cooling technology. “In case of a leak,” he said, “our fluid doesn’t harm electronics equipment, because it’s nonconductive.” Great! So what is this liquid, and can we use it in the aquarium that sits next to all the remote controls? “I’m very hesitant to tell,” Minx said. “It’s a customized formulation - it’s nothing off the shelf.”
AUG 2013 29