Project “PIEZOdevICE”

Intend: „Energy-efficient heat pumps through a combination of active and passive anti-icing strategies“
 

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Short description:

The energy transition is one of the most urgent tasks of our time. Germany has set itself the goal of achieving climate neutrality by 2050. Avoiding greenhouse gas emissions in the provision of heat plays a major role in this. In future, heat pumps will be a dominant energy supply system in the building sector.
In the case of air-to-water heat pumps, low outside temperatures in combination with high relative humidity can lead to icing of the evaporator and thus to a greatly increased pressure loss and a reduction in heat transfer capacity. The aim of the PIEZOdevICE research project is to develop and test new methods to prevent the formation of ice on the evaporator of L-/W-HP. A targeted combination of passive surface design using coatings and large-area laser structuring as well as active piezoelectric de-icing should significantly increase the overall efficiency of the heat pump.
The piezoelectric transducers used to excite the elastic waves can also be used to detect growing layers of ice, so that defrosting by reversing the circuit is only activated when actually required. In addition, ice detection and the defrosting process are to be integrated into a new control concept for the heat pump. Methodologically, transient models for calculating ice growth are to be created and made available to interested parties as an open source solution. The development work will be rounded off with the construction of a demonstration heat pump to prove the increase in the COP value and the SCOP value.

Further information for journalists:

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Seifert
Professorship for Building Energy Technology and Heat Supply
Tel.: +49 351 463-34909
E-Mail: Joachim.Seifert@tu-dresden.de
Visitor Address: Helmholtzstraße 14 / 01069 Dresden

More information on the project: https://piezodevice.eu