In France, a startup has come up with a revolutionary way of making renewable energy as cost effective, reliable and flexible as fossil fuels. Airthium’s breakthrough heat pump will be capable of reaching temperatures of up to 550°C/1022°F – converting electricity to heat, and heat to electricity with high efficiency (achieving up to 86% energy transfer compared to current best-in-class technologies that reach 64%) while producing zero carbon emissions. The company hopes its technology will play an important role in decarbonizing the food, paper, automotive and mining industries, which use vast amounts of energy to melt, dry, separate, react and sterilize materials.
When you consider that more than 20% of worldwide carbon emissions are caused by burning fossil fuels to power these industrial processes, it’s a big deal. Airthium’s heat pump promises to solve the challenge of decarbonizing heat production and reaching global climate targets – and be highly cost effective, efficient and reliable at the same time. Its engine is designed to replace fossil-fired industrial steam boilers and dryers. In the longer term, it plans to deploy the same technology in the energy sector in place of gas-fired peaking power plants, which provide backup power when there is no sun or wind.
The company has already successfully created a room temperature prototype of its heat pump and is now working on the first 250°C prototype. As it progresses through the product lifecycle, it’s important for Airthium to have access to a centralized development environment where its designers and engineers can work within a collaborative environment and maintain full traceability and visibility at every stage.
Through the 3DEXPERIENCE for Startups program, Airthium has been able to take advantage of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud’s enterprise-level solutions without stretching its budget. The startup valued the fact it wouldn’t need to set up and maintain its own IT infrastructure, saving on hardware and maintenance costs. It also values the 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s powerful design and project management functionalities.
“When we were looking at options for CAD software, we knew we wanted to also have a robust product data management to help engineers move forward with designs without the risk and complexity of managing files by hand,” said Franck Lahaye, COO and co-founder of Airthium. “The 3DEXPERIENCE platform is a great base from which we can grow, and eventually deploy a complete product lifecycle management system for the whole company.”
Airthium is already storing all 3D part models in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud. Using the platform’s bill of materials and change management capabilities, it’s benefiting from an end-to-end collaborative change process that clearly communicates the effect of any modifications. As the company grows, it plans to use more of the business roles and tools in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to further enhance collaboration.
Discover more about how Airthium is harnessing the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud to bring its breakthrough heat pump to market.
Rebecca Lambert is a skilled content creator and journalist based in the UK. Since she was a young girl, Rebecca has been captivating readers with her words, covering virtually any and every subject matter.