Tag Archives: Erik Hoogendoorn

A glacier in the desert

Strictly speaking this is not nano but it is interesting and artistic too. A Dutch artist is planning to create a sculpture that will make ice in the desert. From the Nov. 7, 2011 news item on physorg.com,

“You have to open the borders of your thinking,” he [Ap Verheggen] said, in his apartment surrounded by his works. “To make ice in the desert is breaking down the border, and that is opening a new world.”

Verheggen’s giant sculpture is so far only a sketch and a series of charts in a laboratory in Zoetermeer, near his home in The Hague. Cofely, a refrigeration company that makes ice rinks and custom-designed cooling units for food storage, is testing the principles of creating ice in desert conditions.

Scientist Andras Szollosi-Nagi says Verheggen’s work falls at the crossroads of art, environment and science. “It’s an amazing piece, it’s very unusual and that makes it very exciting.”

In Zoetermeer, engineers have produced a 10-centimeter (4-inch)-thick layer of ice on a slab of aluminum inside a shipping container-sized box that simulates desert conditions, with the temperature set at 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) and plans to crank it up to 50C (122F). A humidifier provides the moisture, and a fan is directed at the ice like a desert breeze, resulting in a pool of water dripping off the surface of the ice sheet even as it thickens.

The company is using off-the-shelf technology. “Everybody thinks it’s dry in the desert, but it’s roughly the same amount of moisture in the air as here,” said project manager Erik Hoogendoorn.

Verheggen has created other art/science sculptures with environmental themes. You can read more about them on his blog and about this project SunGlacier on its own blog. I found this video about an earlier project, cool(E)motion, on Verheggen’s personal blog.

According to the SunGlacier blog (Project Outline page), there is a link between the two projects,

The SunGlacier art project hopes to stimulate people to think creatively about solutions to the challenges of climate change. These changes are not necessarily all negative or better still, if we can find a way to turn some of them to our advantage then nothing should stop us to do so. To carry this fresh and positive way of thinking forward, I have kicked off the SunGlacier project as a new and unique sequel to the successful cool(E)motion endeavour.