“Debunking” Peltier-based air conditioning

In this video I respond to an often-asked question, namely what if we build a water cooling loop and attach it to the cold side of the Peltier cooler and use this as some kind of AC. In all my comments/responses, I said that this will not really work as the Peltier coolers are not really designed for this kind of task and they are also very inefficient. This kind of cooling just further deteriorates the cooling capabilities of the Peltier coolers rendering the whole system even worse. One very interesting thing that you should observe in the video is that if we just circulate the water in the cold loop, we can reach nearly 10°C water temperature, however when we turn on the fan which is attached to the cold loop’s radiator, the temperature of the water very quickly goes back almost to room temperature. So even with this very powerful TEC12715 Peltier cooler, we are not able to keep the water cold enough in the cold loop. To keep up with the thermal load introduced by the airflow through the radiator, more Peltier coolers are needed which also implies more power supply and more cooling for the hot side. So, while it is not impossible to build is, it is not a viable thing to do as the cost (investment and running cost) becomes higher and higher with every additional Peltier cooler. As a “rule of thumb”, with each additional Peltier cooler, you have to double the power supply and the cooling capacity.