North Haven energy company Precision Combustion, Inc. has won a Small Business Innovation Research award from the U.S. Navy to develop to capture heat under aggressive conditions.
The Precision exchanger is designed to recover heat generated by gas turbines and diesel engines, which could increase fuel savings, improve the efficiency of a system and generate electricity for Navy applications. Waste recovery is harder for Navy operations because of limitations on weight, space and pressure.
If the exchanger works, the technology could lead to implementation across all of the Navy’s ship engines for both propulsion and electric generations.
“Successful development of an effective waste heat recovery system would have great benefits in increasing energy independence and reducing logistical burden,” said Benjamin Baird, Precision principal investigator, in a press release. “A high performance heat exchanger capable of withstanding the high thermal transients of the exhaust will be key to this system.”
