This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aims to further develop a breakthrough compression technology for industrial compressed air applications. We have developed an innovative hybrid-rotor geometry which leads to extremely high power density and enables the use of a proprietary liquid injection system that can directly cool the gas as it is compressed, leading to near isothermal compression. This combination can result in an increase of over 30% in efficiency and an order of magnitude higher compression ratio than is achievable with conventional compression technology. The key objectives of this effort are to verify the technology's applicability in industrial compressed air applications and build and test a full-scale prototype to validate performance models. The successful completion of this project will lead to the commercialization of a product that will provide a step-change in the performance of industrial compressed air systems.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is widespread. Industrial users are responsible for approximately one-third of all power consumption in the US, or around one trillion kilowatt-hours per year. Ten percent of all industrial power use, or roughly 100 billion kilowatt-hours per year, is consumed in the production of compressed air, with that percentage going as high as 20% in certain process-intensive industries. The technology being investigated in this proposal has the potential to improve the efficiency of air compressors by over 30%. Combining these savings with other system-level improvements could reduce the power required to run compressed air systems by a factor of two. Along with the dramatic potential for energy savings, there is also an enormous market for compressors, with 2007 worldwide shipments of air and gas compressors approaching $10 billion. New compressors used in industrial air applications were worth $600 million in the US alone in 2009. A higher efficiency compressor has the potential to capture a large share of this market. Finally, this technology could also be applied for other compression and turbomachinery applications, with far-reaching impact and enormous commercial potential.
The goal of this Phase I SBIR project was to further the development of OsComp Systems’ near isothermal compression technology. Compressors are commonly used as behind the scenes workhorses powering various industrial applications. In particular, the production of compressed air represents 10% of all industrial power usage; so much that compressed air is sometimes referred to as industry’s fourth utility. By creating a more efficient compressor, OsComp could have a significant impact on both the industrial and total power consumption in this country. OsComp began the project with a solid technological concept and design already in place. The core of OsComp’s technology involves a proprietary liquid injection system which cools the gas being compressed, resulting in higher efficiencies and also enabling much higher compression ratios. OsComp had previously built an early prototype of the system with mixed results. The Phase I SBIR research project began with the engineering team reviewing the results of the earlier prototype to determine a best course of action for redesigning and improving the system. Some components of the initial prototype were reused and combined with newly designed parts to help reduce the cost of the new prototype. The OsComp team assembled the prototype and verified that mechanical fits were all sufficient and significantly improved upon the previous generation prototype. A period of extensive testing began after that in which the OsComp team varied operating speeds, pressures, temperatures, and other parameters to fully understand and characterize the system. A number of extremely exciting results came out of these tests, most notably: Higher pressure ratio achieved than any single-stage commercial air compressor is capable of producing Power consumption reduction of over 40% for a given set of operating conditions when running OsComp’s system with cooling as compared to operation of an uncooled compressor These results demonstrate that OsComp’s technology is valid and that a commercial product could revolutionize the industry. Continued development will require a next generation prototype capable of higher pressures, improved reliability, and reduced mechanical inefficiencies. That will be followed by field trial units being placed in industrial facilities to fully vet the technology. Continued successful development of the OsComp technology has a high likelihood of changing the compressed air and industrial energy landscapes of the future.
