Project description
For environment-friendly cooling and refrigeration
Imagine life without a fridge. Refrigeration has greatly improved our lives, being widely present in our households, and in industries. Yet today, space cooling and food refrigeration applications are usually based on vapour compression technology relying on chemical refrigerants posing great damage to the ozone layer and enormously escalating global warming processes. The EU-funded SolidCool project aims to validate an alternative cooling solution of the Integrate company's innovative technology, which will allow a cost-efficient, solid-state refrigeration technology for cold storage for high-power applications, which can also work on solar energy. By developing SolidCool the use of harmful refrigerant gases as well as present limitations in cold storage applications will be eliminated bringing a breakthrough to the refrigeration industry.
Objective
Vapour compression (VC) technology, used in the vast majority of space cooling and food refrigeration applications, currently relies on synthetic refrigerants which are either ozone depleting substances or mixtures with global warming potential. For this reason, their use is being downsized by EUs F-gas legislation. There is an urgent need to either retrofit existing VC systems and replace banned refrigerants with natural fluids such as ammonia, carbon dioxide (CO2) or hydrocarbons (which are toxic, flammable or costly), or adopt new technologies. On top of that, not all natural refrigerants are suitable for cold storage applications in the range of 1-10kW, where an accurate temperature (T) control and reduced food weight loss is crucial for quality food preservation. CO2 vapour compression (CO2VC) is currently the best option even though it is not safe (CO2 leaks), not so precise in T control and food weight loss is noticeable. An alternative cooling technology that could replace CO2VC for this particular application could be state of the art solid-state technology if low power and high cost did not impede this technology to go mainstream.
Integrate is a belgian start-up that has managed to avoid the use of refrigerant gases and overcome current technology (CO2VC and state of the art solid-state technology) limitations in cold storage applications by developing SolidCool. SolidCool is a solid-state solution that can be used for high-power applications with the benefits of presenting a high accurate T control, a minimum food weight loss, 50% less total cost of ownership, 40% lower price than CO2VC, and can function on solar energy. Given the need to phase out the use of pollutant refrigerant fluids, Integrate is capitalizing on an immediate, global opportunity for industries to adopt new technologies such as SolidCool and expects to make €19 million in cumulative profits and hire 60 new employees in 5 years from completion of the project.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology environmental engineering energy and fuels renewable energy solar energy
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering thermodynamic engineering
- natural sciences chemical sciences organic chemistry hydrocarbons
- social sciences economics and business business and management business models
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.3.3. - SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.2.1.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
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H2020-EU.2.3.1. - Mainstreaming SME support, especially through a dedicated instrument
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-SMEInst-2016-2017
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
3500 HASSELT
Belgium
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.