ZIMBA: Zero-carbon Industrial heat production by aMmonia water aBsorption heAt transformer

Decarbonizing industry is the key challenge for 2050 to achieve the Net Zero ambitions. For this, one of the current pathways is the massive electrification of industrial processes in demand for low-temperature heat (up to 150 °C) thanks to heat pumps. However, the electricity distribution companies have recently issued an alert: the grid development is insufficient to match the enormous future needs for electricity. In the coming decades, this will thus trigger tensions on the power grid and lead to prioritisation in the supply of electricity. Therefore, to alleviate electricity demand while meeting industrial needs, it is crucial to provide alternative technology, such as Absorption Heat Transformer (AHT), which has the potential to meet the demand for low temperature heat, from non-critical and abundant energy sources such as industrial waste heat, with hardly any electrical use.

With this objective of offering another option than vapor compression heat pumps, the ZIMBA project aims to develop and validate at TRL4, an innovative AHT system at 15 kWth and 110 °C. It will be based on a novel water ammonia AHT technology improved by a two-phase ejector specifically designed in order to stabilize its performance and widen the range of its operating conditions, in particular under hot conditions.

From the physical evaluation results obtained, scaling studies up to 500 kWth will be carried out by the consortium, composed of researchers and industrial manufacturers, in order to push for a design with practically no critical raw materials, easily maintainable and recyclable, and with only commercially available components for fast time to market. The integration of the system in the potential future energy market and the associated business models will be studied in order to ensure a circularity of the energy and to fully exploit the exergy of the heat losses.

Thus, ZIMBA will help the EU in reducing its dependence on fossil and electricity, while meeting climate goals.

Project coordinator:

COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES

Project partners:

• CEA, COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES, France 
• Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• CLAUGER, France
• AMIRES, Czechia
• OST – Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland

Main roles of OST are:

• WP4 Leader: Towards a quick, wide, and sustainable market penetration of the ZIMBA technology
• Task Leader T1.2: Collection of end-user requirements
• Task Leader T2.1: Upgrade of testing facilities for pretesting of the baseline AHT
• Task Leader T3.1: Definition of the testing program
• Task Leader T4.1: Market analysis and business models of the AHT technology
• WP5: Communication and dissemination activities

For more information, contact Dr. Cordin Arpagaus, Senior Research Engineer at the Institute for Energy Systems (IES), at cordin.arpagaus@ost.ch

Links:

• Website: https://zimba-project.eu
• Project description: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101146932
• LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zimba-project