Heat Exchangers

Heat exchangers used as supercoolers will be built using icephobic coatings and bulk materials in order to achieve an always free-of-ice surface. The latent heat content of the supercooled water will be released by nucleating ice particles in the ice storage in the form of ice slurries without the need of any additional heat exchanger. 

A tri-partite gas cooler is a heat exchanger divided in three sections, allowing to benefit from different temperature levels of heat sources or sinks. The last section of the gas-cooler preheats domestic hot water (DHW) and the first section is used to reheat it to 60 °C. The middle section is used to provide space heating (SH) in heating mode.

A dual ground/air heat exchanger with direct exchange between refrigerant and glycol/air heat transfer fluids will be developed. The heat exchanger will work as an evaporator/condenser for a reversible heat pump cycle. This optimized design will allow to operate with both sources/sinks simultaneously and providing an enhancement of the heat pump COP.