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

小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是实现一种新的空调(AC)技术的商业化，该技术将减少三分之二的交流功耗。如果被广泛采用，这一解决方案将每年减少约5亿吨的碳排放，并使空调达到20亿人中许多人的承受能力，这些人越来越需要空调，但买不起。全球空调市场每年约为1200亿美元，该行业基本上是由一个多世纪前发明的相同的蒸汽压缩技术服务的。这项技术效率低下，而且由于其高昂的电费，对世界各地的大多数人来说，负担不起。这项拟议中的技术有可能通过减少三分之二的用电量来颠覆这一市场。该项目还有可能导致一种新型膜的商业化，这种膜可以提高效率并降低与高盐度流体处理应用相关的成本，如锂回收、废水处理和海水淡化。该SBIR第一阶段项目建议开发一种新的中空纤维膜技术，该技术适合在液体除湿空调系统中以高通量运行。商业现成的膜不是为这种高浓度环境而设计的，如果用于该系统的商业实施，将使其尺寸和成本达到限制产品适销性的程度。该项目的目标是展示一种定制的膜设计，并量化膜对拟议的空调系统的效率、尺寸和成本的影响。拟议的研究将通过一系列设计/制造/测试迭代来实现这一点，然后使用最终膜的测量特性对系统和技术经济模型进行更新。这一解决方案将扩大膜开发商对高浓度膜的设计和潜力的理解。除了适用于液体干燥剂冷却技术，高浓度膜还将广泛适用于多种高盐水浓度应用，包括在锂开采期间进行的矿物回收操作、零液体排放废水处理以及在世界干旱地区进行的高盐水淡化。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.