An idea for evaporative cooling towers

I've got this idea in my head that I want to build an evaporative cooling tower and related water cooling setup sometime soon. In the process of planning, I had an idea for the tower which I figure is worth asking about (due to my lack of expertise/knowledge of what others have done before).

It regards the air intake portion of the tower - from what I can tell, temperature and humidity are the two most relevent factors of how well the tower can cool (that have to do with the intake component at least....tower size, water dispersion, etc all seem to also matter, but aren't what I'm addressing currently). So, I had the idea of cooling the incoming air by passing it through some sort of cooled heatsink setup (I'm not sure if there's a better name for this or not). Of course, the air is already at ambient temperature, so my idea is to use some sort of peltier element to actually bring the temperature down.

The effect I'm hoping this could achieve would be to cool incoming air, and consequently also cause condensation - lowering the humidity of incoming air.


I have two main questions about this, however:
1. Whether it would actually work, and make some noticeable impact.
2. If it works, whether it would be fairly efficient. If it would require peltiers drawing as much power as the sort generally used more directly on components like the processor itself, I doubt this would be the most efficient place to make use of it...

Er, #2 is ignoring the obvious flaw of peltiers being rather inefficient in the first place though - which is another concern I have regarding the idea. Unfortunately, cooling the incoming air requires a cooling method capable of bringing temperatures to sub-ambient temperatures (due to the given that the incoming air is going to be at ambient temperature...), and a peltier is the best idea I can think of.

So basically, is it possible to do this, efficiently enough to be worthwhile? Or would it be just as/more effective to make use of a liquid chilling system or something as long as you're getting into increasingly exotic/complex setups?

If this idea is old, absurd, etc. feel free to let me know.

Love bongs, really do and think that in a competative environment they excel given the cost and ease. As for the tecs ran different variations of them as well over the years. I do believe though that using a tec in anything other than direct die cooling may prove extremely inefficient.

It could work however the amount of peltiers, power for the pelts, and cooling requirement of the pelts make it completely ludicris to try. The better option would be to find a window AC unit and run the exhaust portion of the evaporator directly into the intake of the evap cooler. That way you have already chilled air with a simple mod you can do with plastic bags. Plus, all the hot air from cooling the evap will be exhausted outside of the house.

Of course, the air is already at ambient temperature, so my idea is to use some sort of peltier element to actually bring the temperature down.

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your idea wont work because pelts actualy generate more heat than they cool so you would be heating the ambient of your room to a higher level. it really is noticable in a 10x10 room for comps cooled by pelt. also your electric bill goes up.

that being said dispearsion and surface area play a much larger role than you think.

made a bong cooler from 12 inch pvc 8 feet high with multiple screen layers and got outstanding results ( only problem is size of system is a real PITA)

Assuming that this was a perfect world, the peltier wouldnt consume massive ammounts of electricity and would actually cool the incoming air to the bong.

It might net you another degree or so, but you would do better to get the humidity of the air down. To do this, you could RAISE the temperature of the incoming air to drive up the amount of water that the air can hold.

Hmm...I'm gonna have to try that, aim a small space heater or hair drier into the intake on the bong. I bet it would be better than just normal air, I could pipe it outside too when I was done