Mechanical refrigeration or cooling systems use compression of various chemicals or working fluids to transfer energy from a low temperature to a higher temperature in just the opposite direction from that in which energy flows naturally.
An absorption chiller uses a heat source combined with an absorber, solution pump and generator (or boiler) acting together as a thermal compressor to replace an electrical compressor in a conventional refrigeration or a/c system, allowing for the use of waste heat, as opposed to an electrical charge, as the power source for the cooling process.
Absorption chillers also use refrigerants which can be combined with/dissolved in water, mainly ammonia and lithium bromide, as opposed to vapour compression systems, which use HCFCs and HFCs, all of which have very high Global Warming Potential (GWP), whereas a refrigerant such as ammonia, used by Zero2Cool®️, has a GWP of zero.
Prior to the development of Zero2Cool’s®️ patented absorption chiller technology, it had only been possible to use waste heat to power the absorption process in an indirect manner, by using hot water or steam, at larger industrial scale.
The manufacturers of chillers at our scale generally use only gas-fired solutions (a gas burner), but which suffer, in terms of efficiency, from using a direct heat source to produce the cooling effect, because this results in the loss of a lot of heat, and therefore energy, precluding the use of direct waste heat.
Zero2Cool’s®️ engineers have designed a novel system which uses the core principles of absorption chilling, with all its advantages in terms of efficiency of refrigeration, and substantially improves the efficiency of heat transfer and recovery within the system.
This makes it possible to use waste heat from a smaller generator/engine, as the direct source of heat energy in the chiller, through the simple expedient of plugging the exhaust of the engine or microturbine directly into the Zero2Cool®️ chiller.
As well as making it practical to attach one or more Zero2Cool®️ chillers directly to the exhaust of a generator or microturbine, Zero2Cool®️ has also designed a unit which can be mounted on a truck or trailer to provide refrigeration for transport solutions and which works on exactly the same principles and designs.
Our 7 kW truck/trailer-mounted unit will provide refrigeration for a 40’ container, powered only by the heat from the exhaust of the truck engine, at a weight of less than half a conventional truck cooling unit.
As a result, Zero2Cool’s®️ chillers deliver cooling free at the point of use (using no fuel, whereas a conventional electrical cooling unit uses about 20% of the truck’s fuel, for example), with no greenhouse gases, no high-GWP refrigerants, and all with great simplicity.
Making generators and engines 30% more efficient and microturbines 100% more efficient, whilst still allowing for simultaneous hot water generation from waste heat and making “water from the air”.
And deliverable in a package small enough to fit to a truck, eliminating 100% of fuel usage for cooling.
With capacities of between 18 kW and 300 kW, and temperature ranges of 3C to 18C, we deliver cold storage solutions with zero fuel cost and zero CO2. Our chillers can be run off waste heat from any generator, including hydrogen, and also off direct fired heat, or biomass. We are actively working on solar solutions as well, such that our technology can be deployed in almost any situation.
With cooling capacities from 4 kW to 7 kW, designed for refrigeration of trailers up to 40/50’, and temperature ranges from 3-18C, our thermal compressor TRUs run off the engine exhaust gases, providing 100% cost- and CO2-free refrigeration. Back-up power from gas and solar is also provided, making the unit entirely self-contained.
Zero2Cool offers highly efficient, reliable cooling and heating units designed to fit easily into any existing air conditioning system. Both our stand-alone and externally powered models deliver a significant reduction in cooling emissions and energy costs at far higher ambient temperatures than other solutions.