Professor's invention could revolutionize the industry
Technology developed at Thayer School of
Engineering is about to revolutionize the $1 billion icemaking business.
The invention is called pulse electro-thermal de-icing (PETD), and products
equipped with PETD are referred to as Icenabled™.
Victor Petrenko
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"An Icenabled™ icemaker will be more productive, more space efficient,
more energy efficient, more reliable, and will make ice faster and of higher
quality than ever before," says PETD inventor Victor
Petrenko, professor of engineering. "In fact, we can safely say that
this technology can increase an icemaker's production capacity by 70 percent
while decreasing its energy consumption by up to 30 percent."
Commercial icemakers, those notorious energy hogs sitting in hotel hallways, in
large restaurants and bars, and in hospitals and military bases, consume
enormous amounts of power. They cycle through a process of cooling, to make the
ice, and heating, to release the ice, as many as 100 times a day. An Icenabled™
icemaker uses PETD to virtually eliminate the heating portion of the cycle.
PETD removes the ice instantly using a short (less than one second), high-power
electric pulse. This same technique can also eliminate the need for
conventional hot gas defrost systems.
According to Petrenko, Icenabled™ icemakers offer a long list of benefits,
including energy efficiency, improved ice quality, increased ice production,
reduced manufacturing costs, fewer service calls, and increased compressor
life.
"It's exciting to see the quantifiable benefits of this technology
realized in icemakers," says Petrenko. "But this is just the
beginning."
Petrenko's invention could ultimately transform the entire $40
billion-refrigeration air conditioning industry that, according to Petrenko,
has struggled with the challenge of keeping cold evaporator coils free of frost
and ice. Dartmouth's PETD technology has proven its ability to de-ice these
coils in seconds using a fraction of the energy required by conventional coil
defrosters.
"In addition," says Petrenko, "there are many other equally
exciting applications for PETD in the works, such as de-icing buildings and
bridges, car windshields, airplanes, windmills and ships, and power
lines."
Ice Engineering, LLC—a company
started by Petrenko in 2001—holds the license for the use of PETD in
refrigeration systems and has signed Advanced Refrigeration Technologies (ART)
as the exclusive sales distributor of the technology to the refrigeration
industry.
Says Tim Durant, CEO of Ice Engineering, "ART's extensive senior level
relationships and broad experience in the refrigeration industry will provide
the exposure and strategic execution necessary to bring the technology to
market."
"The refrigeration industry has not seen an innovation of this magnitude
in decades," says Mark Hangen, managing partner of ART. "As we have
begun to speak with the major manufacturers in this industry it is clear that
this technology will change the industry for the foreseeable
future."
Ice Engineering develops and licenses technology and applications that enable
products that interact with ice/snow to perform significantly better than ever
before. Petrenko is the primary inventor of the technology. Ice Engineering was
founded by Petrenko as a Delaware LLC in April of 2001 to commercialize the
technology in specific industries.
By SUSAN KNAPP
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