Extract energy heat engine

Lead Proponent

Smarter Alloys

Solution

Our Low Grade Waste Heat Engine (LGWH) engine is enabled by a shape memory alloy (SMA) core made of bundles of SMA springs, processed using our Multiple Memory Material (MMM) technology. This core has the ability to absorb heat at discrete temperatures, programmed using the MMM technology. By cycling a hot and cold water source, the SMA core undergoes a phase transformation, causing the springs to either extend or contract. This linear motion is converted to rotary motion to drive a generator and produce clean electricity.

Project

Aims to develop, test and integrate a 500W in-lab prototype, followed by a 10kW scale up of their Extract Energy Heat Engine.

Expected Outcomes

Our target is waste heat temperature below 90°C, as there are currently no solutions to produce electricity from these sources.

There is approximately 1.8GW of untapped potential within this segment. This market can further be segmented based on the amount of potential energy in a plant, with power generation plants having potential on the MW scale, and food/beverage plants having potential on a 10-100kW scale, for example. The target in the near term is to develop a 10kW system that can modularly scale up to 100kW for manufacturing plants with waste heat potentials within this range, growing to eventually target larger power plants. Some of the industries we expect to target are food manufacturing, textile mills and paper manufacturing. In Canada, there are currently 36,845 plants within this market. In the US, there are 156,876, and in Europe, there are 649,417.

We anticipate slow growth initially as the technology begins to mature, reaching 25% of the market by 2050. Based on our projected rollout for our initial target market of manufacturing plants, our technology has the potential to reduce GHG emissions by over 1GtCO2e/year by 2050. Our objective of expanding to power generation plants within this time frame, which account for 25% of the world’s emissions, provides the opportunity to increase these GHG reductions substantially.