UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A team led by researchers at Penn State recently received a $2,491,443 grant from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) to reduce emissions and increase thermal efficiency in industrial systems. The team, which includes researchers at Saint-Gobain Ceramics & Plastics Inc., plans to achieve these goals by developing a new ceramic heat exchanger.
The project is one of 16 selected by the IEDO as part of its $38 million funding opportunity on cross-sector technologies to reduce emissions, according to the DOE’s website.
In this Q&A, Brian Fronk, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State and the project’s principal investigator, discussed the project.
Q: What is the problem that you are setting out to solve with this grant?
Fronk: We are trying to significantly reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from direct-fired high temperature manufacturing processes like ceramic and glass. In these processes, you typically burn a fuel like natural gas with air to provide high-temperature energy to a kiln or furnace at temperatures more than 1,000 degrees Celsius. The very hot exhaust leaving these processes still has lots of usable energy but has been challenging to use because it can be too hot and corrosive for conventional metal heat exchangers. In this project, we are using advanced heat exchanger technology to recover some of this energy to reduce the amount of fuel that needs to be consumed in high-temperature industrial processes.
Q: What are heat exchangers? How are they used?
Fronk: A heat exchanger transfers energy from a hot substance to a cool substance, typically from one fluid to another. Heat exchangers are everywhere! In cars, computers, refrigerators, heating and cooling systems and, of course, in manufacturing processes. The idea of using heat exchangers to recover energy from hot exhaust is not new and is widely used in industry to minimize energy consumption. However, heat recovery has been very challenging in difficult to decarbonize sectors like glass, ceramics, cement, chemicals, iron and steel, and refining. In this process, the exhaust gas can be so hot and corrosive that metal-based heat exchangers can’t survive.
Q: Why aren’t ceramic heat exchangers being used more widely?
Fronk: Ceramic heat exchangers have and are being used in some high temperature applications, but a key limitation for broader adoption has been how to manufacture them into a useful form. In this project, we propose to use additive manufacturing to allow us to create new shapes that aren’t possible with conventional manufacturing. This will help us create highly efficient heat exchangers and allow us to make cost effective designs that can be integrated into new and existing industrial processes.
Q: Who are the other members of the team?
Fronk: I am very excited about the team we have put together. We will combine the ceramic material and manufacturing expertise of Saint-Gobain, led by Bola Yoon, senior research engineer, with the Penn State expertise in heat exchanger design, led by Alexander Rattner, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and process analysis, led by Margaret Busse, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. Together we will work to co-optimize the heat exchanger geometry and manufacturing process, build and test prototypes in the lab at Penn State, and then demonstrate a prototype at an actual Saint Gobain manufacturing site.