Project description
Innovations in eco-friendly cooling and refrigeration
It is estimated that cooling systems account for 7 % of today’s greenhouse gas emissions. As temperatures rise and the global population increases, the greater demand for cooling will only make matters worse. Funded by the European Innovation Council, the DAC (Dynamic Air Cooling) project proposes an eco-friendly cooling device that uses air instead of toxic greenhouse gases to transfer energy. Energy derived from the cooled air is not released as heat but converted into electricity for the unit, making it up to 30 % more energy efficient than traditional cooling systems. The project seeks to market and boost production of its ecological cooling system that will considerably contribute to reducing greenhouse gases and carbon.
Objective
We have developed a new cooling technology based on the principle of adiabatic expansion. Compared to the traditional vapour compression technology:
It uses air instead of toxic HFCs to transfer energy, eliminating this source of pollution and therefore reducing CO2e by 50%. In DAC, the energy extracted from the cooled air is not emitted as heat into the atmosphere but turned into electricity unlike in traditional vapor compression AC/refrigeration units.
This electricity is used to contribute up to 30% of energy required for powering up our units, hence it is 30% more energy efficient compared with traditional compression systems (lower OPEX). This means that they are much cheaper to run.
Due to much simpler design and smaller size, manufacturing costs of our devices are up to 30% lower (lower CAPEX).
DAC tech can cool any air (regardless of its humidity or initial temperature) down to -90°C within seconds from the start of operation and under very low pressure.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-AG - HORIZON Action Grant Budget-BasedCoordinator
82 300 ELBLAG
Poland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.