Heat pumps provide heating in winter and cooling in summer.
While they’re OK for moderate climates, they are not efficient
in extreme cold climates. Building on work that began five years
ago, researchers at Purdue University are developing a new type
of heat pump that is much more efficient and could allow
residents in cold climates to cut their heating bills in half.
The innovation aims to improve efficiency in general but is
especially practical for boosting performance in cold climates.
The new heat pumps might be half as expensive to operate as
heating technologies now used in cold regions where natural gas
is unavailable and residents rely on electric heaters and liquid
propane. “We’ll be able to extend the geographical range where
heat pumps can apply,” said W. Travis Horton, an assistant
professor of civil engineering. “So this could open up a whole
new market.” The vapor-compression cycle of standard heat pumps
has four stages: refrigerant is compressed as a vapor, condenses
into a liquid, expands to