SBIR Phase I: High-Efficiency, Refrigerant-Free Space Cooling

SBIR 第一阶段：高效、无制冷剂空间冷却

• 批准号: 2151454
• 负责人: Jacob Miller
• 金额: $ 25.6万
• 依托单位: ZEPHYR INNOVATIONS, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-15 至 2024-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2151454&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; Efficiency; Refrigerant; Free

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to enable the commercialization of a new air conditioning (AC) technology that will reduce AC power consumption by two-thirds. If broadly adopted, this solution will reduce annual carbon emissions by about 0.5 gigatons annually and bring air conditioning to the point of affordability for many of the two billion people who increasingly need it, but can’t afford it. The global AC market is about $120 Billion annually and the industry has been served essentially by the same vapor compression technology invented over a century ago. That technology is inefficient and, for vast numbers of people around the world, unaffordable due to its large electricity expense. The proposed technology has the potential to disrupt this market by providing a two-thirds reduction in power use. This project also has the potential to lead to the commercialization of a new class of membranes that can increase the efficiency and decrease the cost associated with high-salinity fluid treatment applications such as lithium recovery, wastewater treatment, and water desalinization. This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop a novel, hollow-fiber membrane technology tailored to operate with high flux in a liquid desiccant AC system. Commercial off-the-shelf membranes are not designed for this high-concentration environment and, if used in a commercial implementation of the system, would drive its size and cost to the point which would limit the product’s marketability. This project’s objective is to demonstrate a customized membrane design and quantify the membrane’s impact on the proposed AC system’s efficiency, size, and cost. The proposed research will accomplish this by a series of design/fab/test iterations followed by an update to the system and techno-economic models using the measured characteristics of the final membrane. This solution will broaden membrane developers’ understanding of the design and potential of high-concentration membranes. Beyond its applicability to the liquid desiccant cooling technology, a high-concentration membrane would have broad applicability to multiple high brine concentration applications, including mineral recovery operations such as performed during lithium mining, zero liquid discharge wastewater treatments, and high-brine water desalination pursued in arid regions of the world.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I期项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使新的空调（AC）技术的商业化将使AC功耗减少三分之二。如果广泛采用，该解决方案将每年将年度碳排放量减少约0.5千克，并使越来越需要它但负担不起的20亿人中的许多人中有空调。全球AC市场每年约为1,200亿美元，一个世纪前推出的同一蒸气压缩技术基本上为该行业提供了服务。该技术无效，对于世界各地的大量人来说，由于其大量电费而无法承受。提出的技术有可能通过减少三分之二的功率使用来破坏这一市场。该项目还有可能导致一类新的膜商业化，这些膜可以提高效率并降低与高含量液体处理应用相关的成本，例如锂恢复，废水处理和水去脱酰化。这项SBIR I期项目的建议提案，以开发出一种针对液体可取的交流系统中高通量运行的新型空心纤维膜。商业现成的膜不是为了这种高集合环境而设计的，如果用于系统的商业实施，则将其尺寸和成本推动到限制产品可销售性的程度。该项目的目标是展示定制的膜设计，并量化膜对拟议的AC系统效率，尺寸和成本的影响。拟议的研究将通过一系列设计/FAB/测试迭代来实现这一目标，然后使用最终膜的测量特征对系统和技术经济模型进行更新。该解决方案将扩大膜开发人员对高浓缩膜的设计和潜力的理解。除了其对液体所需冷却技术的可施用能力之外，高浓缩膜还可以在多个高盐水浓度应用中具有广泛的可用性，包括矿物恢复操作，例如在锂开采期间执行的矿物恢复操作，液体液体排放的液体废水处理和零棕榈水的水平以及在世界上的高度启用。智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。