Luminescent, an Israeli startup that developed a liquid-based isothermal engine that can capture, reuse, and store waste heat, raised $7 million in a seed round of funding led by Grove Ventures.
The world is ever looking for ways to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One way to do so is to “capture” any excess energies, such as heat, to be re-used.
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So, what exactly do we mean by “waste heat?” Well, just feel the heat given off by your oven when cooking, or the engines of a car. Now, think of that on a massive scale. Think about all the heat that emanates from any type of large machinery. In many places they need to expend a great deal of energy to cool these things so the heat will not cause a breakdown. But now, imagine if instead all of that excess heat could be captured and reused.
The EPA explains waste heat to power (WHP) is the process of capturing heat discarded by an existing thermal process and using that heat to generate power.
Founded in 2020 by CEO Doron Tamir and CTO Prof. Carmel Rotschild, Luminescent boast that it successfully solved one of the fundamental thermodynamic problems related to WHP and built a small, efficient, low-cost heat engine. The company is developing a new “disruptive” heat engine that is 10kW-10MW – the first isothermal expansion engine and the first to be based on liquid.
Luminescent explains the challenge of efficient conversion of waste heat is inherent to all existing heat engines, because they operate only on gasses or vapors, and therefore on adiabatic processes. As a result they are large in size, high in costs and deliver poor efficiency. They are simply inaccessible to most types of power grids and generators.
Through inducing isothermal expansion, Luminescent Heat Engine is able to generate zero-emission electricity from any source of waste heat, doubling efficiency and cutting cost by half compared to standard heat engines.
“This round is a major step forward towards accessible waste heat solutions that will allow us to scale rapidly to meet demand,” said Doron Tamir, CEO and Co-Founder of Luminescent. “The best model for this business is one where everyone wins. With our solution, the industrial sector can finally afford efficient environmental solutions and open a new revenue stream while addressing the key issue of 75% of waste energy going unutilized. This is the first step in the path to deep decarbonization – and we are planning to provide more solutions in the future that will allow exactly that.”
