Energy Wall's revolutionary system to heat and cool buildings has a wide range of potential applications, but it has to undergo more testing first.
The Lancaster company's design uses a ceramic fiber membrane, bonded with lithium chloride, to move most of the energy in a building’s exhaust air, into the fresh air coming into the same building. This energy refreshes air coming into the same building.
Energy Wall founder Dustin Eplee says this system saves up to 15 percent of heating and cooling costs. It's perfect for new buildings and recently constructed existing buildings, which were often designed for very tight air flow.
In the past two years the product has been installed in eight buildings, mostly along the East Coast. The idea there was to test its efficiency, but Energy Wall also found that its product absorbs a lot of moisture. The next step is to test the design's ability to withstand extreme temperatures, to determine the feasibility of use in these other applications. "We basically want to find the failure point," Eplee says.
That's where a $100,000 grant from the
Green Building Alliance comes in. Penn State's
College of Earth and Mineral Sciences will subject the product to temperatures as low as -40 degrees and as high as 160 degrees Fahrenheit. The testing is supposed to last a year, starting around the time students return to campus at the end of this summer.
The technology could end up being useful in more than just residential and commercial buildings. Possibilities include solar-powered air conditioning systems and fuel cells.
Source: Dustin Eplee, Energy Wall
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen