Dynamic Air Cooling
Cooling is one of the key technologies of the 21st century. It provides comfort, preserves food, drugs, and vaccines, and keeps the internet up and running. By 2060, we will be using more energy for cooling than for heating, and there will be 14 billion AC units in the world.
Current cooling technology has a negative impact on the environment - by the middle of the century, it will generate 27% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Mainly for two reasons: First, cooling uses a lot of electricity. Second, it uses hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) which are 4,000 times more harmful than CO2.
DAC focuses on the reduction of food waste by offering the world's most effective refrigeration solution based on novel cooling technology – The Dynamic Air Cooling (DAC). Our technology allows to decrease the global environmental impact of cooling, also by cutting down waste of valuable resources (water, land, labor and energy).
- DAC can cool air by -90°C within seconds from the start of operation.
- DAC is ecological – no HFCs are used.
- DAC is more reliable.
- DAC is up to 50% more energy-efficient, reducing carbon footprint.
- DAC can upgrade existing AC/refrigeration systems.
DAC innovation is the creation of a freon-free environment allowing higher flexibility of food storage, reducing food waste throughout the supply chain, and decreasing the global environmental impact of cooling, also by cutting down waste of valuable resources (water, land, labour and energy).
DAC uses a unique combination of gas-dynamic principles, allowing to recuperate part of the thermal energy of the air and convert it into electricity, benefits include:
- Immediate air cooling by 90°C (potentially up to 172°C) with a Tornado-like jet stream.
- Air as a cooling agent replacing HFCs.
- Low-pressure cooling (0,6-3 bar) = safer and lower-cost devices (by 30%).
- Smaller & more efficient (uses 50% less electricity) compared to conventional HFC systems.
- More affordable (30% less cost) and easy to install.
- Wide application of DAC will cut valuable waste by up to 5% vs conventional cooling.
DAC is a fundamentally new cooling technology. Dynamic Air Cooling (DAC)—a new patented AC/refrigeration technology that cools down warm air by decreasing its internal energy. Compared with the traditional vapor compression technology:
- It is energy efficient (uses 50% less electricity) and cost efficient (30% less OPEX). In all cooling applications, energy is removed from the air that is being cooled. In traditional cooling units, this energy is then wasted as the heat is disseminated into the atmosphere further boosting global warming. In DAC, the energy extracted from the cooled air is not emitted as a heat into the atmosphere – instead it is turned into electricity. This electricity is used to contribute towards powering up our units, hence it is up to 50% more energy efficient compared with traditional compression AC/refrigeration systems. This means that they are much cheaper to run.
- It is environmentally friendly (reduces up to 50% of cooling related CO2 emissions). In addition to energy efficiency, DAC does not use any harmful HFC chemicals. It uses air instead of hydrofluorocarbons to transfer energy, eliminating this source of pollution.
- It is affordable, compact, reliable and versatile. Due to much simpler design and smaller size, manufacturing costs of our devices are 30% lower. As there is no HFC to leak, our system is more reliable. DAC technology can be used in any type of cooling application: consumer and industrial refrigeration, residential and industrial air conditioning, automotive AC, refrigerated trucks and shipping containers and many more. DAC can cool any air (regardless of its humidity under very low pressure.
Summary: 30% cost reduction, 50% energy savings, 2x faster cooling, easy install, reliable.
Our primary customers are enterprise users of cooling. Priority customer groups:
- Food storage
- Farmers
- Food production facilities
- Food transportation companies
The global cold chain market was valued at $210B in 2020, will reach $628B by 2028, a CAGR of 14.8% over that period. Intensive international trade, government efforts to reduce food waste, and retail chains expansion boosts the industry. In developing economies, the refrigerated storage market is driven by a shift from carbohydrate-rich to protein-rich foods. Increasing demand for perishable products and fast delivery requirements of the e-commerce-based food delivery market created a significant boost in cold chain operations. The rising trend of purchasing perishable products online has led to new opportunities: the need for last-mile delivery, automated warehouses and low-cost environmentally friendly cooling devices for fresh food products.
Target customer groups have the same pains:
- High running cost: with increased temperatures more electricity is needed for cooling. The cost of electricity is growing. Hence, customers spend more money on cooling.
- Current cooling systems are expensive to maintain or replace. In case of freon leaks there is a risk of goods spoilage.
- High environmental toll - customers feel pressure to reduce carbon footprint, but current cooling technology does not allow this.
- High CAPEX makes difficult to obtain new/replace old systems. E.g.: Over 27% of US refrigeration systems are older than 20 years. It leads to constant repairs, freon leaks, food spoilage, and increased electricity consumption.
DAC can cool air by -90°C within seconds from the start of operation. DAC is ecological – no HFCs are used. DAC is more reliable. DAC is up to 30% more energy-efficient, reducing carbon footprint. DAC can upgrade existing AC/refrigeration systems.
In order to understand our customers’ needs, we have conducted 60+ customer discovery interviews. Customers complained about losses associated with technical issues (freon leaks/system malfunctioning), increased cost of freons, increasing cost of electricity. Customer discovery clearly validated the DAC economic value proposition. 6 corporate customers wish to test the DAC system, (incl. DeLaval, Trane Technologies, LG, Maersk, RealSA, Wielton, etc). Also, larger companies and organic farmers place a higher value on the environmental benefits.
DAC system was successfully validated at a food storage facility Piast, Poland, Q1-2022. Trials were conducted in line with the BRIdge Alfa program of National Center for R&D with the goal to cool down a food storage (volume of 1100m3), previously using 80kW freon cooling unit. Our 18kW prototype successfully lowered the temperature inside the chamber from +10 to +1,5°C within 45 minutes of operation (comparable to 4x larger freon unit).
- Further technical due diligence was conducted as a part of EIC Accelerator (European Innovation Council) by the Engineering department of the University of Ferrara, Italy (Dipartimento di Ingegneria, Università degli Studi di Ferrara), which resulted in signing a receiving a grant in June 2022.
- Technical due diligence was conducted by Bialystok University Of Technology, Poland a for a VC investor.
- Further testing will include a refrigerated trailer, underground storage and retail food chain.
We have also conducted all necessary theoretical and computer simulation steps proving that DAC technology can provide air cooling with temperature delta up to -190°C. This makes our technology a prime solution for ultra-low (temperature range -90 °C …-150 °C) applications.
DAC super cold generators can be applied for buildings cooling, transportation and storage of food, vaccines, medical supplies etc.
DAC is a diverse team of highly-qualified experts, experienced in research, tech development, and supply chain leading to many successful product launches. The team has over 120 years of relevant cumulative experience with R&D, 100+ publications, 25 patents and successful growth businesses.
The team started first works on the technology in 2015 as an independent research group.
We already have a highly qualified team which has all the required competencies. Our team has several engineers with strong network connections that allow us to recruit new skilled engineers with the very specific knowledge that we need.
Our CEO and co-founder Pavel Panasjuk has solid experience (over 20 years) in business development and management. He established & successfully launched several hardware companies in Eastern Europe with total annual revenues of €12m+. He has experience managing international teams of up to 40 employees in 5 countries.
Our CTO, co-founder Oleksander Razumzev obtained the PhD title of Doctoral Academy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He is the author of 25 scientific papers and 6 patents on membrane technology for the separation of liquid hydrocarbon compounds as well as Dynamic Air Cooling technology.
Our team shares a common passion and vision to establish DAC technology as the leading sustainable AC/refrigeration technology as part of the global effort to fight against climate change.
- Optimize transportation of supplies and treatments by addressing shipping inefficiencies, cold storage, and last-mile delivery.
- Poland
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model, but which is not yet serving anyone
GrowNY - MVP: In 2021 team has completed a fully functional 18kW prototype (TRL6), which can cool down 10m3 of air/min by -90°C –enough to cool down a food storage size of 2x shipping containers in under 30 minutes – twice as fast as state-of-the-art HFC freon devices. We successfully tested it with an important customer (fruit storage facility PIAST, Poland).
Through customer discovery, we identified significant pain points and translated it into the value proposition. We are getting to test our solution in production, and performance validation with customers, and plan to co-produce our cold generators with existing manufacturers. Our beachhead market is refrigerated storage.
There are few barriers we hope to overcome with the help of Solve:
- Technological barrier - long timelines to industrialize a new technology.
- Business barrier - complicated process to establish a reliable supply chain.
- Business barrier - reluctance to partner with a new player on the market.
Market Barriers / Risks
- Technological risks. Limitations of the off-the-shelf centrifugal compressors may limit performance of our cooling units. Existing centrifugal compressors typically provide limited air flow & insufficiently stable pressure for our purposes. Their reliability is also a risk.
- Financial risks. There is a long lead time for us to enter the market. We are about 2-3 years away from the start of mass production. There is a risk of us not being able to fund our operations.
- Commercial risks. Supply chain volatility endangers production. To carry out initial sales to our target market we will have to build our own small-scale production line & create our own reliable supply chain
- Reverse engineering risks. IP is compromised. There has been a lot of research in environmentally clean cooling technologies globally, yet with no commercially viable results achieved.
We believe that partnership with Solve will help us to:
- Get access to potential investors, receive funding in the form of grants or/and investments.
- Find partnership with other companies. Having a strong technology partner could help us to get to the market faster, however this is not something we will be pursuing until our IP is fully protected.
As we continue the development and market scaling, we grow our team based on the principles of professionalism, competency, diversity and inclusivity. Our goal is to ensure engagement and expertise strengthening of all team members with attention to the underrepresented minorities.
Our technology is aimed to emphasize innovation and scalability in the agri-food sector including a focus on social and economic benefits for the low-income communities, providing access to efficient cooling to reduce food waste, improving living conditions, reducing energy consumption, and contributing to the environmental footprint reduction.
We have started to explore the human and physical capital resources in the region.
- Establishing a regional office to develop NYS/NA market= local operational jobs
- Affordable, easy-to-install/retrofit food production facilities AC = better working conditions = higher productivity
- Better food preservation = less waste = higher farming efficiency
- Savings in production = higher revenues for farmers, no need to overuse other resources (land, water, labor, energy, fertilizers, etc)
- DAC units to be installed by Q3 2023 = technical jobs
- Cold chain GHG reduction by up to 50%
CMO