Company:

Econotherm (UK) Ltd

Project:

The High Temperature Heat Pipe

Year:

2008

Status:

UK Finalist

A recent manufacturing start-up in Bridgend, Econotherm makes heat pipes. A heat pipe is a superconductor of heat, used in heat exchanges to transfer heat from a to b. These heat pipes are used on (among many other things) aluminium melting furnaces, which are used to melt aluminium for castings for cars, engines etc. These furnaces use a lot of heat and gas which is then usually wasted as excrescence. Econotherm already produces a device called a recuperator, which extracts the waste heat from the furnace exhaust, and then transfers it back inside the furnace (which is constantly sucking in air) so that it can be used for the combustion process. If the air used for combustion in the furnace is already hot, then the reaction happens quicker and more efficiently, thus saving large amounts of running costs and natural gas. You might ask - 'isn't this enough?' But Econotherm have not stopped there. Keen to develop and improve the process, they have devised a new 'high temperature heat pipe' which can operate at 1600°C as opposed to the conventional 550°C,which means that they can extract even more waste heat from the furnace exhaust. Econotherm's existing recuperators will typically save around 15 to 20% of the running cost of an aluminium melting furnace, whereas the high temperature heat pipe will double this saving and cut an equivalent amount of carbon and natural gas.

Dr.Dumitru Fectu, Mark Boocock and Econotherm have not settled for second best - they are a shining example of scientific persistence and they have a great result to show for it.