Following a tour of the facillities, Valvoline’s VP of R&D, sat down with Brian to go deep on immersion-cooling.
Brian and the StorageReview team traveled to Lexington, Kentucky, to meet with Valvoline’s immersion-cooling pit crew to examine the practical, technical, and environmental aspects of immersion and direct-to-chip cooling. They highlighted the significance of material compatibility, the development of industry standards, and Valvoline’s ongoing R&D efforts to create fluids that are more sustainable and effective for the data center industry.
The hosts graciously gave a tour of the Valvoline HQ, which included some unique historical insights, followed by a look at race cars on display. Brian, a true motor racing fanatic, was in heaven.
Brian was pulled from the race cars and sat down for a conversation with Dr. Z. George Zhang, Vice President of R&D at Valvoline Global, about current and future trends in immersion cooling.
Dr. Zhang has been with Valvoline for over 26 years and is highly respected within the liquid-cooling community. He recently joined the Advisory Board for the North America Lubricant Expo & the Bearing Show.
He is a certified lubrication specialist (CLS) and oil monitoring analyst (OMA I). Dr. Zhang is an inventor or co-inventor on 8 U.S. patents and has authored 49 peer-reviewed publications.
With all the buzz around liquid cooling, this podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in immersion cooling technology. If you’re strapped for time, we’ve broken it down into five-minute segments to help you navigate this important topic.
0:00 – 5:00
- Introductions & Backgrounds: Brian introduces Dr. George Zhang from Valvoline, highlighting Valvoline’s long history in automotive lubricants and innovation (like high-mileage oils and MaxLife).
- Motor Oil as Engineering: Discussing how people often overlook the complexity of motor oil. It’s not only about lubrication but also cleaning, sealing, and heat transfer.
- Heat Transfer Parallels: Dr. Zhang explains how expertise in automotive heat management translates to data center cooling, especially as data centers face massive heat loads from high-power GPUs.
- Data Center Energy Use: Fun fact: ChatGPT’s 2024 energy use is comparable to the entire country of Ireland, highlighting the scale of heat management required.
5:00 – 10:00
- Mission-Critical Differences: Data centers operate 24/7, unlike cars, so uptime and stability are crucial; however, the environment is less chemically harsh than that of automotive engines.
- Material Compatibility: Data center hardware utilizes various metals, plastics, and labels, differing from those used in cars, making fluid compatibility a key concern. Labels and plastics can break down in immersion cooling environments.
- Cleanliness & Purity: In direct-to-chip cooling, fluid purity is critical because tiny channels in cold plates can clog easily, impacting cooling performance.
- Cooling Segments: Air cooling is still dominant, but liquid cooling (direct-to-chip and immersion) is growing. Valvoline is active in both, with a focus on their PG 25 fluid for direct-to-chip.
10:00 – 15:00
- Technical Differentiation: Not all PG 25 fluids are the same. Valvoline’s patented formula utilizes low-solids and liquid-based additives to prevent deposits and salt bridges.
- Condition Monitoring: Valvoline leverages its automotive expertise to help customers monitor the health of their fluids and system conditions, supporting global supply chains.
- Ecosystem Complexity: Liquid cooling involves numerous partners, including server vendors, hose and cold plate manufacturers, quick-connect suppliers, and more. Collaboration and communication are key to avoiding finger-pointing when issues arise.
- Water Quality & Sensors: Data centers often lack expertise in water quality, so Valvoline is collaborating with sensor manufacturers to enable real-time monitoring of fluid properties, such as turbidity and conductivity.
15:00 – 20:00
- Sensor Integration: The future will include more sensors in cooling loops for early detection of issues, potentially even at the connector or cold plate level.
- Market Adoption: Most US data centers are adopting cold plate/direct-to-chip cooling because it can be retrofitted, while immersion cooling requires new infrastructure.
- Immersion Cooling Advantages: Immersion can cool 100% of components and is vastly more efficient at heat transfer than air, but requires careful fluid movement to avoid hot spots.
- Thermal Conductivity: Immersion fluids (hydrocarbons) are chosen for their low electrical conductivity (dielectric properties), allowing for the safe submersion of electronics.
20:00–25:00
- Immersion Cooling in Practice: Discussing different immersion cooling setups, such as tank immersion (servers dunked vertically) and their impact on power efficiency (PUE as low as 1.03–1.04, significantly better than air cooling).
- Component Reliability: Immersion cooling can significantly reduce failure rates for components such as RAM, storage, CPUs, and GPUs. However, it introduces new operational challenges, such as handling servers with cranes and dealing with oil drips.
- Fluid Chemistry: Valvoline uses pure hydrocarbon fluids for immersion—no fluorine or chlorine, just carbon and hydrogen. This ensures chemical inertness, similar to air, and avoids reactivity with server components.
- Material Compatibility: Early lessons included issues with cables, labels, and plastics not designed for use with oil, such as color leaching, labels falling off, and plastics becoming brittle. Compatibility testing is now a significant focus.
25:00–30:00
- Industry Standards & Collaboration: Valvoline collaborates with OCP (Open Compute Project) and ASHRAE to develop and adhere to material compatibility lists for both immersion and direct-to-chip fluids. These lists help customers choose the right materials for liquid cooling.
- Networking & Signal Integrity: Concerns exist about high-speed networking and light transmission through oil; however, most hardware manufacturers now relocate switches out of the fluid. Valvoline hasn’t seen major signal issues but can adjust fluid dielectric properties if needed.
- Industry Perception: Valvoline is often considered “the car guys” at IT events, but they emphasize their expertise in heat transfer and chemistry, which is directly relevant to data center cooling.
- OCP Working Groups: OCP has separate groups for immersion and direct-to-chip cooling, showing the industry’s growing seriousness about liquid cooling.
30:00–35:00
- Alternative Immersion Designs: Discussion of “precision immersion,” like Isotope’s approach, where fluid is sprayed directly onto hot components in a rack, using less fluid and allowing for easier retrofits. These designs can be more energy-efficient and fit standard racks.
- Component Coverage: Precision immersion ensures that all components, including those that do not generate significant heat, such as capacitors and transistors, are effectively cooled, potentially improving overall reliability.
- Multiphase Cooling: Multiphase (two-phase) cooling utilizes the heat of vaporization for enhanced efficiency; however, the fluids used are often PFAS (“forever chemicals”), which are environmentally problematic. Valvoline avoids these for sustainability reasons.
- System Complexity: Multiphase systems require sealed environments to prevent gas escape, adding complexity and risk.
35:00–37:00 (End)
- Fluid R&D and Future Directions: For immersion fluids, Valvoline is researching ways to reduce its carbon footprint, including bio-derived hydrocarbons, although these present challenges due to the presence of double bonds and higher costs.
- PG 25 (Direct-to-Chip) Sustainability: PG 25 is currently derived from petroleum, but plant-based options are available, although they are pricier. Valvoline is exploring ways to make these more cost-effective and sustainable.
- Chemistry Matters: Chemistry knowledge is increasingly essential for IT professionals working with advanced cooling systems, compatibility, fluid properties, and environmental impact, all of which hinge on a solid understanding of chemistry.
- Lab Testing: Valvoline does extensive in-house testing for compatibility, performance, and system efficiency, both for immersion and closed-loop cooling systems.
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