La Crosse, WI – CompRex announced today that it was awarded a $1.76 million project from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding, through the High Intensity Thermal Exchange through Materials and Manufacturing Process (HITEMMP) program, will be used to develop new approaches and technologies for the design and manufacture of high temperature, high pressure, and highly compact heat exchangers and components.
“CompRex is very excited about the ARPA-E’s HITEMMP award,” said Dr. Zhijun Jia, CompRex’s founder and CEO. “It is a recognition of CompRex’s strong background in compact heat exchanger design and manufacturing, as well as a financial support needed for this transformational manufacturing technique that can significantly reduce the cost of these critical components.”
CompRex aims to transform heat exchange technology for high temperature (>800°C or 1472°F) and high pressure (80 bar or 1160 psi) applications through the use of advanced metal and ceramic composite material, development of a new simplified manufacturing approach, and optimization of heat exchanger design based on the new material and manufacturing process. This solution could not only satisfy the performance requirements of next generation power cycles but also significantly lower costs of production and scale-up by as much as 40% compared with existing state-of-the-art heat exchangers. The same manufacturing approach can be applied to different materials to produce various devices such as pumps and reactors. This versatility could expand the technology’s significant performance and cost advantages and disruptive potential in a broad array of applications, including transportation, aerospace, and oil/gas/petrochemicals.
During the two-year project, CompRex will seek to demonstrate the feasibilities of this innovative material and the newly proposed manufacturing approach, with the aim of producing and successfully testing a pilot scale heat exchanger based on simulated conditions similar to that in a high efficiency power cycle such as the supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle.
To learn more about this award, please visit: https://arpa-e.energy.gov/technologies/programs/hitemmp
About CompRex, LLC
Since its founding in 2014, CompRex, LLC has established itself as a leading supplier of highly advanced industrial heat exchangers and reactors for use under extreme conditions in applications such as power generation, petrochemical production, and waste treatment. Our products offer unparalleled performance, compact footprint, and significant cost savings, enabling us to win multi-million dollar projects alongside the likes of GE, Boeing, MIT, and UCLA. We are proudly based in America’s heartland, in La Crosse, Wisconsin, where we have a state-of-the art in-house manufacturing facility, and with the support of our partners, we are able to design, engineer, and produce ASME-certified systems to our many customers.
About the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Energy that seeks to advance high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment. ARPA-E projects have the potential to radically improve U.S. economic prosperity, national security, and environmental well-being. ARPA-E has a highly competitive project selection process, and those that are selected for funding are required to implement a rigorous program and subject to active management by the agency’s program managers, who are all top experts in their respective fields. Learn more about ARPA-E at https://arpa-e.energy.gov/.