Due to climate change, and the dress requirements of some places of work, the commute can be so hot, that sweat threatens to ruin one's suit. So the idea is a refrigeration vest that shifts the heat away from your body to a thin backpack containing a slimline compressor. This would have the refrigerant coils going over the collar to the vest, and functioning like a refrigerator. The power pack can be a lithium battery.If it was designed well, it could sense the body temperature and adjust its levels to keep the wearer at a certain coolness evenin extreme hot weather. A plug-in feature can allow the user indefinite coolness if one's workplace is too hot, or after a period of exercise to cool down quicker.
Such a heat pump could run in reverse and keep someone warm,but i don't see that as the need. Its the armies of commuters in cities like new delhi, new york and tokyo when the weather is climate-change warmer-than-ever. People will be able toat least cool their own bodies with heat pumps as a most modest use of cooling energy.
Possibly other uses include soldiers in heavy hot battle dressand race car drivers.. anyone who needs to stay cool insidea uniform that is too hot for the weather.
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To remove heat it has to go somewhere. If a crowd of people have personal refrigerators the heat sink exposed to the environment must be hotter than the environment so that it can release heat. But a crowd of people with heat pumps would act as environmental heaters so that the cooler the individual, the hotter the environment and each person would be in a kind of futile race to dump heat and merely make things worse.
True enough - however it depends on the type of refrigeration used. Whilst you are at work, the refrigerant can be condensed in to a vessel,and in your commute home, this vessel could evaporate using a small suction pump in to a gas cylinder that can be re-condensed at a basestation.
It is indeed true that a refrigerator makes the room its in hotter, butso far its not been a problem for using them. It strikes me eminentlymore efficient to cool a person instead of cooling a room; and yet thereis no machine for it.
sweetheart, although I agree with the spirit of your idea, I think the actual usage of it would end up being much more difficult. What you've proposed seems to me to be akin to the cool-suits worn by astronauts and fighter or helicopter-pilots. Also, similar cooling apparatus has been worn by some race-car drivers.
The ones that have been used 12VDC peltier coolers with the fins in a 'box' that the user carries. The heat is removed from the box with fans, to the open air when they're moving.
Other designs I've seen involve expanding gases or pop-type coolers full of ice, vests that you put in the fridge. But none has been brave enough to try to run a compressor on batteries. I just don't think you could do that very long. If you think it'll work, I'd love to see it.
http://www.coolshirt.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_cooling_and_ventilation_garment
Usually, you will be sitting in a chair during your commute. That would make it impractical to wear it on your back. Not only would it be uncomfortable, but it wouldn't be able to dissipate heat effectively. Maybe you could put the system on the front instead. If it's intended for commuting and you have a car, you could use the cigarette lighter socket to power it instead of a battery.
I saw this suit on the discovery channel once, back pack full of ice cylinders - some sort of circulation system (tubes)