Starting Fresh: A Clean-sheet Design
"The CO2 thing really excites me. Advancements this company has made are looking to be bigger than the advancements made when we went from the recip to the scroll compressor. This is a completely different technology. I’ve got to figure out a first application to use this thing. I’m that excited about it!"
David Pflum,
Vice President & General Manager Valent LLC, a Division of Greenheck Fan Corporation
In the late 1990s, unfettered by industry conventions and recognizing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a small company in Illinois initiated a “clean sheet” design approach to develop a CO2 compressor. Armed with a body of intellectual property in proven high-pressure piston pump design and competencies in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics, the scientific and engineering team was well positioned for the task of developing a revolutionary compressor.
The U.S. Army also recognized the potential of carbon dioxide refrigerants by forming the CO2 Cooling Development Team in the Army Power Division. Their mission was to spearhead development of CO2 heating and cooling systems (environmental control units, or ECUs) to replace HFC units in the field. Recognizing the promise of the company’s novel pump designs, in the period 2003-2006 the Army supported the company’s development efforts with two SBIR contract awards (total award $843,000), focusing on Army compressor ECU requirements. These research projects established the feasibility of the company’s compressor design.
After reviewing the successful Army SBIR results, the Illinois Technology Development Alliance (ITDA) awarded the company a development grant. This grant was successfully completed in 2007, yielding critical refinements that further demonstrated and validated the novel compressor design.
Today EcoThermics is working on an advanced sixth generation pilot manufacturing prototype with production planned for the first half of 2011.