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Solar Ice Maker, a fridge without electricity

19 Luglio 2014 Raffaele Salvemini
GreenTech srl, Energy for the Future

GreenTech s.r.l, a completely Italian company, starts a revolution in the cold chain.

1.5 milliards of people, 600 millions only in Africa, live without electricity and all those services deriving from it. The idea of the “Solar Ice Maker” (SIM) project was born considering the situation of African villages, where vaccination campaigns are essentials, but at the same time, it’s very hard to preserve the vaccines themselves.

There are no fridges and even if there were, it would have been impossible to make them work in areas not reached by electricity. That’s why GreenTech created a machine able to produce cold from the energy of the sun. No fuel, electricity or frequent maintenance is needed, because SIM does not have any moving parts.

SIM the prototype is a solar refrigerator machine designed for the preservation of vaccines, completely autonomous and independent from electricity. Its functioning principle starts from a non-traditional refrigerating cycle, an adsorbtion one. The system is composed of a solar thermic collector, a condenser, and a refrigerating box containing the evaporator end the products to be preserved. The extras offered by the machine are:

  • independence from electricity,
  • zero operating costs,
  • no polluting emissions,
  • no maintenance,
  • non-polluting used materials (ammonia is not used),
  • extremely simple use,
  • thermic and non electric accumulation.

What comes out from the functioning cycle is the production of ice released in a proper box. The costs of one unit are “very compelling”. Considering the extreme social importance and the innovating contents of the project, the company has to constantly evaluate the possibility to obtain funds destined to innovative projects, possible European or transnational projects.

This said, GreenTech s.r.l. is looking for a partner to realize and commercialize a high-technical product with great social implications. The partnership must aim at the production and commercialization, prior miniaturization, of a polyvalent machine (vaccines or food preservation) with sustainable costs for the African realities. The prototype is perfectly functioning and could represent a sustainable solution to substitute the compression refrigeration systems with endothermic engine.

 

Thanks for the article to the GreenTech s.r.l. engineers:

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