Applications

The energy market is a market valued at over $2 Trillion Dollars.  The Thermafficient^(R)  heat engine has direct application in each of the following markets.

Residential and automotive (1-100 kW)

• Residential tri-generation / solar thermal
• Internal Combustion Engines waste heat recovery
• Automotive hybrid engines

Industrial Waste Heat (100 kW - 10 MW)

• Refineries, Petrochemical and Gasification
• Heavy Industries: Steel, Aluminum, Cement, Pulp & Paper, Glass, etc
• Incinerators, Waste to Energy

  Distributed Energy (250kW - 2MW)

• Retail
• Residential Developments
• Commercial Buildings

  Utility power (1 MW - 50 MW)

• Fossil fuel based generation
• Solar thermal
• Geothermal

Typical waste heat sources include fired boilers, gasifiers, gas turbine exhaust, heaters, furnaces and steam turbine exhaust and vented steam. 

Value Proposition

The Thermafficient^(R) heat engine’s value proposition is found in the combination of its lower expected levelized cost of electricity, smaller system footprint, broader operating conditions, integration across a variety of renewable technologies and WHR applications, fewer moving parts (thus lower expected operating and maintenance issues) and benign working fluids.  The system possesses several key advantages over existing technologies that lead directly to this value proposition:

• Higher thermal efficiency - the ability to recuperate more thermal energy to maximize the overall thermodynamic cycle efficiency and trans-form thermal energy into high value electricity. 
• Thermal source agnostic - meaning a wide range of heat sources are suitable for energy conversion to electricity.
• Smaller expanders for power generation - resulting in reduced hardware weight and volume, with higher specific power output because under supercritical conditions, the viscosity of CO₂ is considerably lower than even water’s viscosity.
• Low power consumption - the binary solution can be pumped as a liquid to high pressure using less energy as compared to pumping a gas, reducing the weight, volume, and power consumption of the solution pump.
• Smaller condenser heat exchangers - because operation above the CO₂ critical temperature allows more efficient heat transfer over a wider range of temperatures all above the minimum differential temperatures required for the condensation process.
• Very small regenerative heat exchangers - compact form factor using microchannel tubes with 0.004 inch (0.01 mm) nominal inside diameters because of lower liquid viscosity and higher heat transfer coefficients.

Taken together, Thermafficient^(R) systems can significantly increase the coefficient of performance, while reducing manufacturing costs, and greatly reducing component size and weight as compared to competing power generating systems.