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Making Better Use of Industrial Waste Heat

Eine Hand hält einen Globus vor dem Hintergrund einer grünen Wiese mit blauem Himmel. © Gerd Altmann​/​pixabay
Process heat alone accounts for about two-thirds of the German industrial sector’s final energy demand. At the same time, a large portion of the waste heat generated in industrial processes is still lost to the environment. A new invention from TU Dortmund University is helping to minimize such energy losses: Prof. Andreas Brümmer, together with his team from the Fluid Technology Department at TU Dortmund University (department of Mechanical Engineering), has developed an optimized screw-spindle expander, which has now been sold to the company Cixten with the support of the CET.

Specifically, it involves a combination of a screw-spindle expander—which converts thermal energy from waste heat into mechanical energy during gas expansion—and a screw-spindle compressor, which uses that mechanical energy directly to compress a gas. Thanks to the special design of the screw-spindle expander, with counter-rotating rotors, the resulting bearing forces remain well under control even under significant pressure differentials. This ensures wear-free and energy-efficient operation, for example, when used in large heat pumps.

Increasing Sustainability in Industry

Together with the Research Legal Affairs Department within the Finance and Procurement Division and PROvendis GmbH, the CET supports and guides inventors from the initial idea through the patenting process to the successful commercialization of their invention and the conclusion of corresponding contracts. As a result, the rights to the patented invention have now been sold to the French company Cixten. The company specializes in the recovery and conversion of low-temperature waste heat into usable energy. “For us, this development stemming from scientific research is another important building block for improving our technologies and increasing energy efficiency and sustainability in industry,” explains Philippe Wagner, CTO and founder of Cixten.