Advanced Liquid Cooling Strategies for Electronic Devices

As electronic devices become more powerful and compact, their associated heat generation presents a critical challenge for reliability, performance, and longevity. Traditional air cooling methods are increasingly ineffective to dissipate the high heat fluxes encountered in advanced devices, data centers, and power electronics. Recent research highlights the growing interest in liquid refrigeration, which offers significantly higher heat dissipation rates compared to conventional systems. This transition is reshaping both the academic and industrial landscape, inviting questions about optimal fluid choices, heat exchanger design, system integration, miniaturization, and their environmental impacts.

Despite notable advances in two-phase cooling, dielectric fluids, and microchannel heat exchangers, there remain open debates regarding heat transfer optimization, cost-effective implementation, and environmental sustainability. The field urgently needs comprehensive investigations into new coolants and refrigerants, control strategies, long-term performance, and multi-scale thermal phenomena to bridge the gap between laboratory innovations and real-world deployment.

This Research Topic aims to consolidate the latest developments, challenges, and breakthroughs in the use of liquid refrigeration for the thermal management of electronic devices. By gathering multidisciplinary expertise, the goal is to address critical questions regarding fluid dynamics, heat transfer enhancement, reliability, system integration, and future trends. Contributions that propose novel materials, experimental validations, simulation approaches, and life-cycle assessments are particularly welcome. The Research Topic aspires to offer both a broad perspective and detailed insights to inform future R&D and industrial applications.

The scope of this Research Topic is centered on liquid-based cooling of all forms of electronic hardware, from microprocessors to power systems, excluding purely air-based or passive cooling. Submissions should focus on experimental, numerical, or theoretical studies, as well as reviews and case studies related to liquid refrigeration technologies. To gather further insights in this emerging domain, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Advances in single- and two-phase liquid cooling systems for electronics

• Novel refrigerants and dielectric fluids for safe device integration

• Microchannel, jet impingement, and immersion cooling strategies

• System-level design and integration in data centers and high-power devices

• Performance evaluation, reliability, and environmental impact assessments

• Scaling challenges and opportunities from laboratory to industry


We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review, and Perspective articles.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Liquid cooling, Thermal management, Electronic devices, Two-phase cooling, Dielectric fluids, Microchannel heat exchangers, Immersion cooling

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.