Immersion Cooling Fluids

Immersion cooling transfers heat directly from electronic components to a dielectric fluid, eliminating the need for fans, heat sinks, and raised-floor infrastructure that air cooling requires. It delivers significantly higher heat transfer efficiency than air cooling at any rack density.

Two-phase immersion cooling submerges electronics in a dielectric fluid with a low boiling point. As components generate heat, the fluid boils and vaporizes, carrying heat away as latent energy. The vapor rises to a condenser, returns to liquid, and cycles back through the system.

This phase-change process transfers heat far more efficiently than single-phase cooling, making two-phase immersion the most effective approach for high-density computing environments.

Single-phase immersion keeps the fluid in liquid form throughout, relying on pump circulation to move heat to an external exchanger. It is simpler to implement but less efficient at high heat loads. Direct-to-chip circulates coolant through cold plates attached to individual components without submerging electronics, offering targeted cooling but limited coverage across a full system while adding complexity and reliability risk.

Two-phase immersion handles the highest heat densities of the three approaches, without the need for pump circulation.  It offers the highest heat-transfer efficiency and scales with chip power in ways single-phase and direct-to-chip cannot match.

The primary alternatives are air cooling, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, and rear-door heat exchangers. Air cooling remains the most widely deployed approach, but it reaches practical limits at rack densities above 20-30 kW. Direct-to-chip addresses high-power processors but leaves other components air-cooled.

For facilities operating above 30 kW per rack or planning for next-generation GPU and AI workloads, immersion cooling is the only approach that scales without infrastructure compromise.

Immersion cooling handles heat loads that air cooling cannot manage at scale, reduces energy consumption by eliminating chillers and computer room air handlers, and enables higher component density per rack. It also extends hardware lifespan by maintaining consistent operating temperatures and eliminates water consumption in facilities that rely on evaporative cooling towers.

Most engineered immersion cooling fluids contain carbon-fluorine bonds, which is the basis for the PFAS classification, and Standard Fluids’ products carry that classification. The PFAS compounds driving most regulatory action, PFOS and PFOA, bioaccumulate in tissue and persist in groundwater for decades.

The fluorinated fluids used in immersion cooling have substantially different environmental profiles, with short atmospheric lifetimes, low or negligible GWP, and no bioaccumulation, which is why they sit outside the core of current regulatory concern despite the shared classification.

3M™ exited the fluorochemical market due to legal and regulatory pressure surrounding PFAS as a class. The products themselves were not the issue. Novec™ 649, Novec™ PF-5056, and the broader Novec™ product line remain technically and environmentally sound, and the molecules remain in production at scale. The team of scientists and engineers that developed the original 3M™ products built Standard Fluids to fill the supply gap left by 3M™.

Existing data centers are built around vertical racks and raised-floor air handling. Immersion cooling uses tanks, and neither single-phase nor two-phase configurations fit into that existing layout.

Data centers built for immersion from the start are more compact and require substantially less chiller capacity and air-handling infrastructure than equivalent air-cooled designs. Both configurations share that advantage, which is why immersion is increasingly the specification for new high-density builds.

The most important factors are chemical equivalence, purity standards, and testing infrastructure. A verified Novec™ replacement should carry the same CAS number as the original Novec™ fluid, be produced to at least equivalent purity, and ship with a batch-specific CoA from an independent laboratory. Standard Fluids was founded by the team that developed the original Novec™ product line and validates every batch to the same specification they helped write at 3M™.

The right fluid depends on your cooling approach, heat load, and application environment:

• SF 649™ for two-phase immersion cooling in data centers, high-density computing environments, and lithium-ion battery thermal management
• SF 5056™ for single-phase immersion cooling and as a nucleating additive in rigid polyurethane foam formulations
• SF 7100™ for single-phase immersion cooling, electronics testing and cleaning, and aerospace and military thermal management

If you’re not sure which fluid fits your application, contact our team and we’ll confirm the right match.