Posted on 08/20/2009 5:12:33 AM PDT by Schnucki
Materials to keep drinks cold or hot for longer have been around for quite a while. Now a pair of German scientists has come up with a high-tech mug they claim keeps coffee at the perfect temperature.
The idea came to the researchers at the Christmas market in the Bavarian town of Rosenhiem. "We got upset because the mulled wine" -- Glühwein, in German -- "was always either too hot or too cold," say Klaus Sedlbauer, the head of the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP), and his colleague Herbert Sinnesbichler. "We had to find a solution."
And find a solution they did. The two scientists found it in phase change material (PCM), a wax-like substance used in the construction materials industry that is normally used to ensure comfortable room temperatures in the summer without having to use any energy for air conditioners.
The material can be embedded within plaster boards or placed on walls and ceilings -- where it absorbs and stores warmth, such as that emitted by the sun during the day, and releases it once again after the sun has gone down, thereby creating a pleasant room temperature at all hours. "But," Sedlbauer adds," a lot of winter and ski jackets also contain PCM to keep people warm. Most people probably have some somewhere in their closet."
PCMs also have long-term memory capabilities that make them ideal for storing computer data over extended periods of time without any need for an electrical current. For example, researchers at the Berlin-based Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics (PDI) are looking into exactly why the material has these storage capacities.
A Highly Active Internal Life
The researchers at IBP
(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...
how do it know?
I'd get a different cup at that point.
But one that keeps coffee hot? Sign me up! It has to be pint-sized...
Proving once again that alcohol is the inspiration for most discoveries.
Ah - love those Germans
But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret. -Ronald Reagan
my thoughts exactly :-)
No kidding. I can tell you from personal experience that life if not worth living unless the Gluewein is "just right". Thank God someone has done something about this threat to humanity.
“But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret. -Ronald Reagan”
Reagan was joking.......Obama went ahead and DID it!!
Sure, there's lots of intelligence in the scientists who developed PCM, and in the people who put it to this use.
But the coffee mug is not "intelligent".
Just drink it faster.
"It keep de hot stuff hot, and de cold stuff cold.
But how do it know?"
Oh No! Another Intelligent Design article.
They also have a mug that keeps beer cold. This should have been the headline, IMO.
OR, you could just get a single-cup “hot plate” pre-set for coffee’s ideal drinking temperature, and it would keep it “at temp” forever (or until the next power outage, anyway). Phase-change materials don’t store all that much heat. Yeah, the coffee will stay warm a bit longer, but that’s all. Eventually, even with the PCM, it WILL get cold.
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