The company’s TurboClaw steam compressor, the heart of its heat pump design, uses Honeywell’s Solstice zd (R-1233zd), a non-flammable, ultra-low-global-warming-potential (LGWP) refrigerant replacement for R-123, which has been phased out because of environmental concerns. Futraheat has already received a £500,000 grant from Innovate UK to build a 300 kilowatt TurboClaw demonstrator, which it anticipates trialling in early 2022 for waste heat recovery.
High temperature heat pumps take waste heat and transform it into heat that can be reused, enabling companies to dramatically reduce their energy consumption. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) flagship report, “Net Zero by 2050”, states that heat pumps will be a cornerstone technology for displacing fossil fuel heating to achieve net zero CO2 emissions.
Futraheat’s TurboClaw technology can operate at reduced speeds without oil, lowering the manufacturing, operating and heating costs.
“The need for heat is responsible for 70% of industrial energy demand, most of which is generated by gas, and our TurboClaw technology will be the most cost effective, zero-carbon solution to industrial process heating,” said Tom Taylor, chief executive and founder, of Futraheat. “Our heat pumps can recover waste heat from as low as 70°C, deliver high grade heat up to 150°C, and operate with modern low global warming potential refrigerants. Using Honeywell’s Solstice zd for the development phase of this project brings us a step closer on delivering on that ambition.”