If you didn’t know any better, you might think it’s magic.
David Garcia gave TechCrunch a demo video demonstration of a device developed by his company, YPlasma. A row of five candles sit in front of a harmonica-like device with wires hanging off it. Suddenly, the flames flicker and then snuff out.
Inside the device, two strips of copper coursing with electrical current are generating plasmas, or clouds of charged particles, that induce airflow through the cavity and out over the candles.
It’s nothing a fan couldn’t do, but YPlasma’s actuator has no moving parts, and the strips are thin and flexible.
“It’s cheap to manufacture, is very thin, so it fits everywhere, and also consumes very little energy,” Garcia told TechCrunch.
A small fan in a laptop might use 3 to 4 watts, Garcia said, but YPlasma’s actuator would only use 1 watt to cool the same amount. Plus, its flexible form factor means it’s easier to fit in increasingly space-constrained consumer electronics.
Those qualities have caught the attention of a major semiconductor manufacturer, he said.
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To refine its actuators, YPlasma recently raised a $2.5 million seed round led by Faber with participation from SOSV, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. As part of the deal, YPlasma will run its research and development out of SOSV’s Hax lab space in Newark, New Jersey, and offices in Madrid. The company was spun out of Spain’s space agency, INTA.
The ability to manipulate air using nothing but electrical forces has a wide range of applications. Based on YPlasma’s website, that could include vehicle aerodynamics, satellite propulsion, aircraft de-icing, water harvesting, and more.
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