Date published
19 Nov 2025
Author
Francesca Cain-Watson (Iceotope), Rachel Gerrald (Valvoline)
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The Power of Valvoline Dielectric Fluids and Iceotope Liquid Cooling Technology
With global compute loads soaring from AI and other high-density applications, dielectric fluid-based liquid cooling offers a leap forward in thermal management vs. traditional air or water-based systems. Iceotope’s “direct-to-everything” cooling technology and Valvoline’s dielectric immersion cooling fluids have become cornerstones of future-ready, sustainable data center design.
The Science Behind Dielectric Coolants
Dielectric coolants are electrically non-conductive fluids specifically designed to absorb and transfer heat from electronic components, such as processors and memory within servers. Unlike water or glycol-based fluids, dielectric coolants prevent electrical shorts and corrosion while allowing direct contact with sensitive electronics. Key benefits include:
- High thermal conductivity: Facilitates rapid and even heat dispersion across all electronic surfaces.
- Electrical non-conductivity: Helps withstand high voltages, enabling safe operation even in the event of a spill or equipment breach.
- Chemical stability: Resists breakdown or degradation over long periods at elevated temperatures and in the presence of electronic components.
- Material compatibility: Minimizes reaction with server hardware, plastics, elastomers, or metals, avoiding corrosion or swelling
- Low viscosity: Ensures the coolant flows freely through tight spaces, enhancing circulation and cooling efficiency
These features enable dielectric coolants to outperform air and water-based solutions in reliability, density, and efficiency.
Iceotope: “Direct-to-Everything” Liquid Cooling
Iceotope stands at the forefront of liquid cooling innovation, using precision delivery of dielectric coolant to address the rising challenges of power density, energy use, and water sustainability in modern data centers.
In Iceotope’s design, a small volume of dielectric coolant is delivered directly to all heat-generating server components—processors, memory, storage—dramatically improving thermal transfer. How it works:
- Micro pumps create a gentle, closed-loop recirculation of coolant within each chassis.
- The heat captured is transferred to a plate heat exchanger, for heat rejection via dry coolers
- Dry coolers eliminate water evaporation, achieving zero process water usage while enabling waste heat recovery for re-use elsewhere in facilities.
The result is cooling technology that can handle high IT loads efficiently, without relying on traditional chillers or large evaporative systems, fundamentally lowering both energy and water demands.
Valvoline: Dielectric Coolant with Exceptional Thermal Stability
Valvoline, a heritage brand in automotive and industrial solutions, has leveraged its century-old expertise in lubricants and heat transfer to formulate immersion cooling fluids specifically for high-performance computing and AI-intensive workloads.
- Superior thermal transfer: Designed for rapid heat dissipation, enabling higher server density and performance stability.
- Non-conductive and stable: Engineered to provide robust electrical insulation while maximizing the lifespan of both servers and coolant.
- Compatibility: Formulated to minimize risk of hardware degradation, helping to ensure joint value for manufacturers and operators.
- Sustainability: Developed to support energy recovery initiatives, since liquid cooling reduces the need for scarce water resources
Valvoline Global is a member of the Open Compute Project (OCP) and formulates heat transfer fluids with industry best practices and guidelines in mind.
The Big Picture
As AI, cloud, and edge workloads push data center power densities higher, conventional cooling methods are reaching their physical and environmental limits. Liquid cooling, especially solutions combining Iceotope’s engineering with Valvoline’s fluid science, is redefining what’s possible for sustainable, cost-effective, high-scale computing. To learn more, visit: