Ultra-Efficient Heat Exchanger from Wilson TurboPower to Be Adapted by Praxair
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Strategic alliance provides both companies with new breakthrough-efficiency products and applications.
(Woburn, MA) - December, 2006 - Wilson TurboPower, Inc., has signed an agreement with Praxair, Inc., to adapt Wilson TurboPower's patented rotary-regenerator heat exchanger to improve the oxy-fuel combustion process used by Praxair's oxygen customers.
The Wilson Heat Exchanger produces a remarkable heat-transfer efficiency of 98% and can operate at temperatures exceeding 1,800 degrees F (1,000 degrees C) - well above the efficiencies and operating temperatures of metal heat exchangers. And the Wilson Heat Exchanger is also more compact than metal units, taking up to 95% less volume!
This highly compatible application of the Wilson Heat Exchanger promises to reduce operating costs, save considerable space, and increase productivity and throughput. As a consequence of Praxair's anticipated success, Wilson TurboPower is expecting to further prove the versatility of their technology in yet another thermal-energy transfer process.
Bruce Anderson, CEO and cofounder of Wilson TurboPower, characterized the relationship as a "game-changing opportunity" for both companies. "With each new application of this MIT-based technology, we better understand the significantly higher levels of performance that our systems can achieve, and we continue to expand the practical operating limits of industrial heat exchangers."
According to Stewart Mehlman, Praxair's Director of Licensing, Alliances, and Emerging Technology, "This is just one more way we keep our customers on the leading edge of industrial gas technologies. The high operating temperature and remarkable efficiency of the Wilson system will give our customers a more efficient combustion process to reduce fuel consumption at a lower cost than current methods."
The Wilson Heat Exchanger is the first practical ceramic thermal regenerator and offers several significant advantages over all other systems including high-efficiency performance, high operating temperatures, high durability, and compact size. By commercializing two remarkable energy technologies developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wilson TurboPower has successfully resolved the previous practical limitations of wear and leakage inherent in earlier regenerator designs. Instead of the regenerator core rotating at a steady speed with duct seals pressed against the core faces (promoting wear and leakage), the Wilson Heat Exchanger uses a proprietary indexed-rotation device to incrementally reposition the core.
The seals are lifted slightly during each quick rotation, then resealed firmly again against the core while the disk is paused, about 95% of the time. Between rotations, hot exhaust passes through a section of the core in one direction, while lower temperature air or a specific gas passes through a previously heated section in the opposite direction - capturing up to 98% of the exhaust's thermal energy for use in the customer's application.
Bruce Anderson anticipates similar levels of efficiency can be achieved in nearly any process requiring air or gas heat transfer. "Our alliance with Praxair is a model for other strategic partners who recognize the performance and energy-saving advantages inherent in this exceptionally efficient heat exchanger."
About Praxair
Praxair is the largest industrial gases company in North and South America, and one of the largest worldwide, with 2005 sales of $7.7 billion. The company produces, sells, and distributes atmospheric and process gases, and high-performance surface coatings. Praxair products, services, and technologies bring productivity and environmental benefits to a wide variety of industries, including aerospace, chemicals, food and beverage, electronics, energy, healthcare, manufacturing, metals, and others. More information on Praxair is available on the Internet at www.praxair.com.
About Wilson TurboPower
Wilson TurboPower was founded in 2001 to commercialize breakthrough-efficiency technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The ultra-efficient Wilson Heat Exchanger is currently being adapted to select applications and is also enabling development of the ultra-efficient Wilson Microturbine. Wilson TurboPower is privately owned by its founders, Dr. David Wilson, Bruce Anderson, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, plus an international group of investors and energy experts. For more information about Wilson's advanced technologies and breakthrough-efficiency products, please visit www.WilsonTurboPower.com.
For more information, please contact Drew McInnes at
Wilson TurboPower, Inc.
55 Sixth Road
Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 USA
Phone 781.368.1000
Fax 781.368.9397
Website www.WilsonTurboPower.com
E-mail info@WilsonTurboPower.com
sales@WilsonTurboPower.com
