NanoTherm

NanoTherm is a collaboration of AMBER, Glantreo and HT Materials Science that will will enable Irish companies to develop a leadership position in the international heating and cooling market leveraging the expertise of the world-class nanotechnology centre at AMBER. Successful exploitation will result in a reduction of over 1MT CO2 in Ireland by 2035, with several multiples of this internationally. Funded under DTIF, under Project Ireland 2040 and run by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with administrative support from Enterprise Ireland.

The growth of energy used for commercial and industrial space cooling is accelerating and is becoming a potential impediment to meeting global climate targets. Worldwide, energy for space cooling tripled between 1990 and 2016, and could triple again by 2050 at current trends. For Ireland, with its focus on developing a data centre cluster in the Dublin region, cooling is increasingly becoming an issue with current projections showing the potential for these centres to consume 29% of national electricity generation by 2028. This is clearly unsustainable and requires novel approaches to facilitate energy-reduction solutions based on disruptive research and technology.

NanoTherm is an Irish led innovation to solve a global challenge; It will enable Irish companies to develop a leadership position in the international heating and cooling market leveraging the expertise of the world-class nanotechnology centre at AMBER. Successful exploitation will result in a reduction of over 1MT CO2 in Ireland by 2035, with several multiples of this internationally. NanoTherm focuses on the development of novel, heat transfer fluids based on high stability nanocarbon dispersions that will increase the effectiveness of heating and cooling systems in commercial and industrial businesses. The high performance nanofluid solution developed within the NanoTherm program will generate thermal transfer improvements of up to 40% over current water/glycol-based systems, resulting in lower energy consumption, lower costs and reduced environmental impact. Innovative aspects include combining novel methods for producing chemically functionalised mixtures of 1D and 2D carbon nanomaterials with a custom-engineered single-step reactor system to deliver fluids with high dispersion stability, superior thermal transfer capacity and longer lifetime. Crucially, in keeping with the circular economy, resource and material retention will be maximised.