Air conditioning technology.

I wonder how this will work and how much the units will cost?

I guess we will have to wait and see, It seems to me that this would be way better than building power plants to bring down CO2 emmissions since it is ten fold more energy efficient.

techxplore.com...

Cool video about how it works, kind of reminds me of gas fridges that just have a pilot light in them to cool your food in campers. Now why don't they promote gas refrigerators to save energy, they work great and would save people money in the longrun. But of course they are special order in most places.

What do you guys think about this technology?

Neat idea well see if it ever makes it to homes

As for the propane powered fridge u find in a RV well reliability there filled with ammonia mainly and dont last long when used for years 24/7 also there installed with the back outside vented to the air that's so if it leaks you dont breath in the gas

I can see them being used by homebuilders or refrigerated truck fleets for right now. They are cost inhibitive for the average home owner.

Cool tech. though. Hopefully it has a future.

originally posted by: Taupin Desciple
I can see them being used by homebuilders or refrigerated truck fleets for right now. They are cost inhibitive for the average home owner.

Cool tech. though. Hopefully it has a future.

I am sure that if they start producing lots of these the price will come down somewhat. Now that the way it works is out there, there will be other ways to do this kind of process developed. Maybe a different metal than sodium might be used or a little spin on the technology will create competition. They could produce and sell the units for half the cost if they start to get more sales.

From the site, the pre-order section has a little price info.

20,000 BTU/hr system with four in home heat exchangers is estimated at $10,000.

I do not know how expensive a comparable central air system would be or whether this heat exchanger could be installed in an existing hot air furnace plenum at a cheaper cost.

a reply to: rickymouse


Competition will drive development of better
units. An air conditioner for an 800sq ft
house should only cost a few dollars.

In Phoenix and Las Vegas, the cinder block
houses all have massive condenser units
on the roof but in San Francisco houses have a
modest heat handler and no air conditioner.

Portable/self contained units costing
little could be mass produced but might
be too expensive.

a reply to: rickymouse
20,000 btu will only cool about 750-900 square feet. It's about 400-450 sq ft per 12,000 btu. That's very expensive, a new high efficiency air conditioner will run you about $6,000 - $8,000 installed and provide 3-4x the amount of cooling.

I am living in south Texas.
A.C. units burst into flames come sunrise.
Gotta just go wet your head in the creek.

Sounds too good to be true. Is expensive for the output. Has neat computer animations that explain nothing about how it works. Foreign accent spokesperson that says lots of words but nothing about how it works. I think that checks all the boxes for a hoax.

I just mentioned this to a YouTube channel I know of that does just this kind of investigation. Thunderf00t might see this worthy of another busted video.

This is what I like to call a “shiny pony!”..
It’s pretty
It has questionable specs
Its likely going to have a warranty backed by a company with an iffy future.

Honestly if there was a guy that invented a breakthrough technology in air conditioning he’s going to sell the design to one of the large manufacturers for a crap ton of money.
Instead it’s being built by a startup.

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
Sounds too good to be true. Is expensive for the output. Has neat computer animations that explain nothing about how it works. Foreign accent spokesperson that says lots of words but nothing about how it works. I think that checks all the boxes for a hoax.

I just mentioned this to a YouTube channel I know of that does just this kind of investigation. Thunderf00t might see this worthy of another busted video.

From what I read, it is a joint venture with the US navy that actually holds the patent. The guy took what they had done with navy engeneers and made it into something that worked. It was designed for cooling something in jets if I got that right, but after developing it he decided to try to adapt it to use in trucks and houses. I wonder if some of the money goes to the military for using the patent?

a reply to: rickymouse


What kind of weird science are they using here ? If it’s a sealed system under a vacuum and they use heat to make water vapor, the pressure from the expanding water will erase the vacuum and the system will fail until it’s cooled off. The only thing the vacuum does is lower the boiling point of water. The cooling system in your car is the reverse; the pressure raises the boiling point of water.

In a 100% sealed system it’s impossible to maintain a vacuum or pressure in one chamber only, eventually the system will stabilize its self. Without a pump or a compressor and condenser what makes the water go through the cycle of water to vapor and back to water ?

Water, or as they say “pure water” is still just water and can be corrosive, plus it’s also poor for transferring heat which is why you have to add coolant(anti-freeze) to your car.

If this thing works at all like they say, I’m predicting a very short life span.

originally posted by: Grayarea
a reply to: rickymouse


What kind of weird science are they using here ? If it’s a sealed system under a vacuum and they use heat to make water vapor, the pressure from the expanding water will erase the vacuum and the system will fail until it’s cooled off. The only thing the vacuum does is lower the boiling point of water. The cooling system in your car is the reverse; the pressure raises the boiling point of water.

In a 100% sealed system it’s impossible to maintain a vacuum or pressure in one chamber only, eventually the system will stabilize its self. Without a pump or a compressor and condenser what makes the water go through the cycle of water to vapor and back to water ?

Water, or as they say “pure water” is still just water and can be corrosive, plus it’s also poor for transferring heat which is why you have to add coolant(anti-freeze) to your car.

If this thing works at all like they say, I’m predicting a very short life span.

I have no idea how that would work, I know about atoms losing electrons, fire is a chemical reaction actually where energy is created by breaking bonds. But I can't understand how breaking bonds then assembling them again would be able to cool like that, as you said. Evidently it works, but there are things to consider, they say after five hundred days the technology is the same as at one day as far as losing the water.

Also, this does not include the energy to pump the fluid around to the heat exchangers or the energy to run the fans on the heat exchangers. Also there will have to be fluid to transmit the energy, it would need antifreeze in that fluid I bet. It is a sales pitch for sure, but apparently it does work.

I wouldn't buy one myself, I do not have natural gas here and I don't have an air conditioner, the trees around our house cool the house. I would never send them money to hold a spot either when there is no real evidence it works in a house setting.

But at least someone is thinking out of the box and inventing things that are more efficient.

A cooling system using refrigerant is a closed loop also. I don't know what they're trying to imply by suggesting it's not. The refrigerant expands and it cools, then it's run through a heat sink and condensing unit to return it to liquid form where the process begins again. Refrigerant lasts in this loop for decades...it's not like there's a constant flow to the cooling unit. Suggesting otherwise is just silly (like P.T. Barnum kind of silly).

When you decommission a refrigerant based system they capture the freon (from the closed loop) and reuse it, or dispose of it. It doesn't just get released into the atmosphere. Silly rabbits!

All this is, is the same process using water, which is a less efficient refrigerant, AND, it uses natural gas whereas a traditional system uses electricity in lieu of NG. Seems to me the only change is where the carbon footprint is (i.e. your home vs. the local power utility). This is just an RV cooling system on steroids which uses NG in lieu of propane.

What am I missing here??

ETA - Bottom line; there is NO "free lunch". Period.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

They want you to think that the Freon is bad.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk


When you decommission a refrigerant based system they capture the freon (from the closed loop) and reuse it, or dispose of it. It doesn't just get released into the atmosphere. Silly rabbits!

Well, they are supposed to do that, but honestly the "red rag recovery" method is very common.

Half the techs I've met in the field don't know how to use a recovery machine to be honest.

Is this about r22 being phased out?

a reply to: rickymouse

Ok, so now that I'm home and had a chance to actually watch the video and look into it, this is a very inefficient method of air-conditioning. Not worth the money in my opinion. An evaporative cooler is more efficient.

Basically they created a vacuumed system (not a true vacuum) in which the pressure is lowered allowing the boiling point of water to be significantly lowered. Then air is passed over the heat exchanger (the evaporative unit) and the water in the system absorbs the heat from the air and evaporates. The vapor is then somehow re-condensed back into water and the system continues in a cycle. However, the issue is the heat needs to be transferred somewhere for the system to run on a reliable cycle.

Any closed-loop air-conditioning system requires a condenser and an evaporator. Evaporator captures the heat, condenser transfers it to an unobjectional location.

I go to about 24 classes a year, put on by various HVAC manufacturers regarding the new tech they are coming out with. This theory isn't new, it's asked about in almost every class I attend. The answer is simple, if it worked as good as advertised, ALL the major HVAC manufacturers would be jumping on it. Yet, as you see they aren't, and for good reason. It doesn't work as advertised.

originally posted by: Arnie123
Is this about r22 being phased out?

Ughh, don't get me started on the EPA and their phaseouts...R22 is no longer legal to manufacture or import in the US. The replacement was supposed to be R410, which is ALREADY in the process of being phased out... 2028 or 2030 i believe is phase-out date for that one.

a reply to: rickymouse
Years ago when I was kid we had a gas fridge from what I was told it would heat up liquid ammonia to aa gas and compress it to do the thermal dynamics like freon does.