Copper foam heatsink?

[HTMLmoron]

Has anyone thought of using metal foam (copper, aluminum, etc) to wick heat quickly as a heatsink? The metals that evenly distribute heat naturally would theoretically be great for cooling PCs without having to power a water cooling system and only needing a fan during extremely power intensive operations. Even simpler configurations like open-cell porous copper would be wonderful at its job. 

[Radium_Angel]

23 minutes ago, HTMLmoron said:

open-cell porous copper

I think the issue would be all the air gaps, causing uneven cooling, but it is an interesting idea

[Blue4130]

5 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

I think the issue would be all the air gaps, causing uneven cooling, but it is an interesting idea

You need the air gaps to allow air to remove the heat from the copper.

 

5 hours ago, HTMLmoron said:

Has anyone thought of using metal foam (copper, aluminum, etc) to wick heat quickly as a heatsink? The metals that evenly distribute heat naturally would theoretically be great for cooling PCs without having to power a water cooling system and only needing a fan during extremely power intensive operations. Even simpler configurations like open-cell porous copper would be wonderful at its job. 

It's an interesting idea. I wonder how big you could go while still getting heat soak to the outer ends of the "cooler" and would it be enough to properly cool a decently fast/modern chip...

Could make for some funky looking builds. Very organic sci-fi looking.