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May 4 2012 by shoes01

May 4 2012 by shoes01

May 4 2012 by shoes01

Nov 24 2011 by keyur.kps

Aug 26 2011 by cariboume

Apr 5 2011 by Steve Mueller

Thanks v. much for your kind words, Steve. Certainly you are right that we should add to our array of possible applications, the PTAC/HP range - thanks for the recommendation. With regards the APEX-paper, can you send me an email, your company and whether I can find you on LinkedIn, to [richard.williams@xergyinc.com] and i would be happy to forward you one.

Mar 17 2011 by Timelord

TL, thanks for your innovative thoughts in including our devices in your own system. I hope other major system-integrators also see the potential in this, become our strategic-partners, bring this new technology to market, bring refrigeration out of the Victorian age and into a clean, efficient one. Good luck to you too! R

Mar 7 2011 by prospero

Great, so that also takes care of condensation to a great extent.

yo Richard, ....... This is exactly what I am looking for !!

OK, just to reiterate, the Kuel-cellTM device is not a fuel-cell, but a hydrogen pump with a miniaturized refrigeration cycle within; electricity goes in and the result is a hot-side and a cold-side (no other inputs or outputs or moving parts). The unique properties of hydrogen and the selected refrigerant mean they can co-exist and pass through the PEM membrane; there is no need for separation. Interestingly, use of a different refrigerant, with the right properties, means we can go cryogenic (methanol does not allow us to do that) and not just that, we can “stack” our units so that the Delta-T in temperature can be extended.

Mar 6 2011 by prospero

Let me just say that this is a (set of ) highly satisfactory answers that have addressed every query that I had raised. Congrats !

(4) Sorry, if the observations I have made are off the mark. Yet your description of a motorless, device that generates electricity and a fuel cell that runs backwards to act as a refrigerant source does not seem to add up and has me confused ==== (RLW) Ok, so it does not “generate” electricity; it “consumes” it. It’s not a fuel-cell but at its heart is a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM), just like a fuel-cell, but run in reverse to a fuel-cell (electricity in, hydrogen slightly “pressurized” to propel the refrigerant (methanol) around the vapor-compression, Carnot refrigeration-cycle. And all this without a compressor-motor, or indeed any moving parts (or noise, or rare-earth-metals) leads to an inherently highly efficient device that is scaleable and should pull the refrigeration industry out of the Victorian era and into a greener, CFCs free modern age.

(3) One of the basic requirements of a fuel cell is that it needs a steady and constant supply of fuel. Yet you state that your kuel cell requires only a tiny but of hydrogen that can be sealed into the device and last for the lifetime of the unit. ==== (RLW) OK, so knowing that we are not a fuel-cell, you’ll realize there is no need for a supply of fuel; just electricity. We do not “consume” the hydrogen, but let it dissociate and re-associate within the device as it circulates, and is propelled by, the membrane. This is effectively the most efficient means of turning electricity into refrigeration as it’s done at a molecular level without the need for moving parts. The currently available PEM membrane, running in a harsh fuel-cell environment (oxygen, I believe, is the culprit) has a slight drop-off in performance after 2000 hours. In refrigeration, 2000 hours equates to 10 years operation (on, off, etc.) and our devices are far less harsh on the PEM. Also the fuel-cell industry has many membrane technologies that have never come to market due to lack-of-scale in fuel-cell industry, that actually could extend the lifetime performance, when our devices attains the huge potential scale possible when used in every fridge, AC, car, soda-dispenser, water-cooler, etc. in the world.

(2) I don’t know if I am right in this premise, but if it is hydrogen fuel cell technology how do you propose to generate enough power to power a HVAC unit that let us say even if you are using the most efficient system yet produced will need a minimum of at least 1kw output. ====== (RLW) So basically what we have is a device (or module) that at its heart is a PEM. Also within the module, sealed for life at the factory, is a small amount of hydrogen and some methanol. Electricity is passed in and during operation, the result is a hot-side and a cold-side. There are no other inputs or outputs; no reservoir of gases, no “fuel” being fed in or exhausts taken out. Within the module is an engineered Carnot-Cycle (a vapor-compression, refrigeration cycle) that channels the slightly pressurized hydrogen, “dissociated” into protons and electrons around. The hydrogen is now effectively a “propellant” that forces the methanol (the “refrigerant”) around the refrigeration cycle. Experts in thermodynamics have run models that show our KC100 unit (100 Watts cooling capacity) to have a COP of 9.7 which makes it 2-to-3 times more efficient than current Mechanical-Electric technology (CFC-based, with compressor motor, as in our fridge/AC/car today, that is basically unchanged in last 100 years) and more than 10 times that of Peltier thermoelectric devices. We are scaling up to build a KC1000 that is intended to deliver 1000 Watts cooling capacity. The great thing about our modular-approach is that we can reach a ton of cooling (3.5kWatts) by using, side-by-side, 4 of the new KC1000 units. An interesting possibility in HVAC, is that our devices would enable for the first time, cost-effective “distributed” AC. One can now contemplate Kuel-cellTM modules throughout a building and not worry about having to maintain all those compressor motors, yet have AC reacting to local, room-by-room requirements.

(1) So as far as I can understand this is basically hydrogen fuel cell technology. Thanks Prospero for trying to get you head round our invention; if i may, i'll answer your questions one at a time. Our Kuel-cellTM devices use fuel-cell technology; but are not, in themselves, fuel-cells. The particular piece of fuel-cell technology used is the membrane (aka Membrane Electrode Assembly - MEA or Proton Exchange Membrane - PEM). If you ask any fuel-cell engineer, they will say "yes" instead of putting hydrogen in and getting out electricity, you can put in electricity and get out hydrogen. But you know what, none of them until now has realized this phenomenon has applicability in refrigeration to create a motor-less refrigeration compressor. They have all been focused for the last 10-20 years in making cars fun on hydrogen.

Mar 5 2011 by Timelord