SBIR-STTR Award

Most of the current commercially available refrigeration systems use a fluorocarbon based refrigerant such as R134 that has a significant total equivalent global warming impact. A large part of the global warming impact comes from the unavoidable release of the refrigerant into the atmosphere. There are other approaches to refrigeration, such as Transcritical CO2, Peltier Cells, and Sterling Coolers, but they are often expensive, inefficient, and heavy. Machflow Energy, Inc. is developing new cooling and heat transfer technology based on the Bernoulli Effect. The technology can work in a closed cycle where the refrigerant (noble gasses with no ill effects on the environment) is always in the gas phase and also the manufacturing cost of the system is inexpensive due to small number of components. Our goal for Phase I and Phase II projects is to build a functioning building air conditioner prototype that can then be modified for manufacturing.Commercial Applications and Other

Benefits:
The technology that we are developing can be used for residential, commercial, and automotive cooling, resulting in light, inexpensive, safe, and environmentally friendly system.

Most of the current commercially available refrigeration systems use a fluorocarbon based refrigerant such as R134 that has a significant total equivalent global warming impact. A large part of the global warming impact comes from the unavoidable release of the refrigerant into the atmosphere. There are other approaches to refrigeration, such as Transcritical CO2, Peltier Cells, and Sterling Coolers, but they are often expensive, inefficient, and heavy.Machflow Energy, Inc. is developing new cooling and heat transfer technology based on the Bernoulli Principle. The technology can work in a closed cycle where the refrigerant (noble gasses with no ill effects on the environment) is always in the gas phase and also the manufacturing cost of the system is inexpensive due to small number of components. Our goal for Phase II projects is to build a functioning building air conditioner prototype that can then be modified for manufacturing.In Phase I of this project demonstrated key improvements of the performance of our system. We set up a rapid development system where we can quickly move from computer simulations, to building prototype parts, to experimental verification. Finally, we developed a Phase II development plan. Our goal for Phase II projects is to build a functioning building air conditioner prototype that can then be modified for manufacturing. To achieve this goal we plan to improve efficiencies of three main components of the system