a 3D printed ceramic passive cooling brick we are working on…
http://www.emergingobjects.com/projects/cool-brick
is this like an osmosis transfer of energy? If so, you could have the bricks flipped around depending on the time of year. For heating in the winter, and cooling in the summer.
Ok that is pretty cool (literally :-). @Jim_Inziello when the water changes phase from liquid to gas (evaporation) it takes heat out of the air which is where the cooling comes from. Sorry but it can’t heat the air using the same trick. These look nice enough that you could make a small fountain for the center of a room which could be both decorative and add cooling to the space around it. You would need a way to run a working fluid through the bricks if you wanted to use them as a heat exchanger (they are designed to use air of course but it might be interesting to see if they would be more effective than a typical evaporative tower)
@Chuck_McManis
You can put heat into the air using the same trick (change from gas to liquid) but it doesn’t happen well at temperatures that are generally useful to think about. Hmm, what would happen if you just built your tower out of these things? Do they exhibit much capillary action?