EcoThermics sequesters carbon for HVAC efficiencies

Move over air conditioning units, furnaces and water heaters. EcoThermics has a new technology that combines all three in one.

CEO Merle Rocke told the Cleantech Group his company, Peoria, Ill.-based EcoThermics, is developing heating and cooling technology with its compressor prototype that addresses technological hurdles associated with using carbon dioxide as a refrigerant in heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, and offering energy efficiencies in the process.

The company was formed in September 2007 to commercialize intellectual property developed by a predecessor company WhiteMoss, which specialized in high-pressure hydraulics and has since gone dormant.

The U.S. Army had approached WhiteMoss to develop a natural refrigerant to replace standard hydrofluorocarbons, which are expensive and considered 1,500 times more toxic than baseline carbon dioxide, EcoThermics said. Hydrofluorocarbons are a compound consisting of hydrogen, fluorine, and carbon.

With two government small business innovation research grants, WhiteMoss developed a prototype which sequesters carbon dioxide, using high-pressure hydraulics instead of other methods that "beef up" existing HVAC designs, Rocke said.

“We don’t create carbon dioxide. We take it out of the atmosphere,” Rocke said.

The technology has been tested at Purdue University’s Herrick Laboratories, known for its HVAC research.

WhiteMoss had 82 investors, mostly friends and family, but didn’t have any shareholder agreements, Rocke said. It needed a partner to commercialize the technology, and that’s where Rocke fit in.

The chief executive has more than 35 years of management experience across a wide spectrum of global industries, including the U.S. military. He formed the new company and gave existing investors stock in the agreement.

EcoThermics is currently housed in an incubation center in Peoria where it is focused on expanding its patent portfolio and developing a second prototype.

The technology is being testing in four different locations, including two undisclosed partners, with five main objections: 1. to keep reducing energy; 2. to improve heating and cooling performance; 3. to reduce its cost, designing it for manufacturing; 4. safety; and 5. durability.

It is being tested for residential, commercial and industrial processes, as well as mobile and portable applications. The company’s business model includes licensing the technology or selling components to existing HVAC companies.

“Our partners are most excited about the fixed applications for buildings, for heating and cooling of space and water,” Rocke said.

The mobile version could be used in U.S. Army tanks, while the portable version could be critical in emergency situations and military camps for organizations such as the American Red Cross and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Powered by a portable generator set or hydraulic system, it could be used for heating and cooling when the electric grid is down, Rocke said.

The technology could also help military vehicles, such as the Abrams tank, in the European Union to comply with a ban on hydrofluorocarbons on highways come 2011 (see Europe may need more cuts in transport emissions).

The company’s small, compact unit offers heating and cooling in a way it says is more efficient than other processes, and could help reduce utility bills. About 60 percent of residential utility bills are for heating and cooling of water, Rocke said, and EcoThermics thinks it can reduce that by as much as 50 percent with its technology.

The technology has a year of lab testing, followed by another year of field testing before it's expected to hit the market, Rocke said.

The six-employee company has been funded with more than $5 million from angel investors, grants, friends and family. It is currently seeking $6 million, potentially from venture capital or private equity firms, to take the company to profitability by year five. The funding would be used for prototype development testing and some marketing.

Other companies including Philadelphia, Pa.-based Chi Sage Systems are commercializing a technology to reduce the waste of energy and water in typical heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration systems in homes and commercial buildings (see Chi Sage to globalize Chinese heat-pump tech).

The Western Cooling Efficiency Center at the University of California, Davis, is working to help drive commercialization of less power-hungry cooling technologies for HVAC manufacturers, which have traditionally found it easiest and most cost-effective to sell the same compressor-based cooling equipment everywhere, regardless of environmental characteristics of local markets (see A look at U.C. Davis' cleantech R&D).

EcoThermics is one of 10 new clean technology companies the Cleantech Group added to its innovation pipeline this week, available exclusively to members of its Cleantech Network. Members can click here to search the database.

Interested in emerging cleantech innovations? Here are two new companies added to the Cleantech Group's database this week also looking for funding:

• Birmingham, UK-based Aeristech is seeking £200,000 ($316,000) to support a customer project where a major vehicle manufacturer would test its prototype. The company is developing carbon dioxide reduction technology for engines. Aeristech said its Hybrid Turbocharger Technology (HTT) is suitable for automotive engine downsizing, fuel flexibility applications in energy generation, and soot reduction in heavy diesel vehicles. A downsized car engine using HTT has 25 percent better fuel economy and correspondingly lower carbon dioxide emissions compared to a larger engine of equivalent performance, according to Aeristech.
• Sydney, Australia-based New Bio-Products & Fuel (NBP&F) is seeking US$4 million to build operations through initially distributed power generation implementation and small-scale sewage trials to implementation. NBP&F is developing IP around the production of what it says is low-cost, high algae growth as well as the extraction and conversion of algae. The company has engaged in field trials and has several strategic partnerships with local government, water authorities, power stations and distributed energy providers.

Seeking capital, partners or customers? Submit to the Cleantech Group’s innovation pipeline.

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