Chill out: Purdue produces innovative ChillNado to help tailgaters, beachgoers, others cool and store drinks, food

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Tailgating is big business in the United States – an estimated 50 million Americans tailgate every football season and spend $12 billion enjoying the pastime. Purdue University researchers have developed new technology to help tailgaters, beachgoers and anyone else enjoy cool drinks.

The Purdue team created a new cooler technology they call ChillNado. Current cooler technology is made to just keep drinks or food at a certain temperature for some amount of time, but ChillNado keeps them cool and rapidly cools them down to a desirable chilled temperature.

“Purdue research is about coming up with new ways to solve problems,” said David Page, a graduate student in Purdue’s Krannert School of Management and an alumnus of Purdue’s School of Mechanical Engineering, who helped lead the team of researchers. “Our ChillNado invention addresses a gap in the cooler market and innovates on an old technology. We also want to promote interest in mechanics and STEM by merging complex topics like machine design and heat transfer with more enjoyable activities like dining around a fire with friends or attending a backyard barbecue.”

Page and the other members of the Purdue research team developed innovative mechanical systems for ChillNado to ensure drinks and food stay at lower temperatures.

“The advantages of ChillNado include being able to quickly bring drinks to a desirable temperature, returning those drinks to a desirable temperature once they have warmed and doing all of this while achieving and maintaining beverage stability,” Page said. “We can cool drinks 10 times faster than if they were to sit stagnant in a traditional cooler.”

ChillNado can store up to six drinks at one time and cool them from room temperature to 40 degrees Fahrenheit in just over a minute. The cooler also has a user-friendly interface.

Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization has a patent application on the technology and is actively seeking companies to license the technology and bring it into the hands of the public.

About Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization

The Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university's academic activities. The office is managed by the Purdue Research Foundation, which received the 2016 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Innovation from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. For more information about funding and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. For more information on licensing a Purdue innovation, contact the Office of Technology Commercialization at otcip@prf.org. The Purdue Research Foundation is a private, nonprofit foundation created to advance the mission of Purdue University.         

Purdue Research Foundation contact: Chris Adam, 765-588-3341, cladam@prf.org

Sources: David Page, page29@purdue.edu

Scott Lancaster, slancas@purdue.edu

Kyle Ma, kylecma@hotmail.com

Chris Mead, chrismead3.00@gmail.com

Mitchell LoVerde, loverde4@purdue.edu

Contact for licensing and commercialization: D.H.R. Sarma, Office of Technology Commercialization, otcip@prf.org