Camfridge's magnetic fridge prototype ready soon; will seek Series A funding before end '06
Cambridge University spin out Camfridge Ltd, developing a revolutionary magnetic refrigeration technology, is on course to produce a prototype in June and seek series A funding in the second half of the year.
Managing director Neil Wilson says the company is already in contact with main system manufacturers and strategic refrigeration users to jointly develop pre-production prototypes for at least three market segments.
Camfridge's technology for efficient energy refrigeration is based on magnetic refrigeration, a relatively new method for cooling using magnetic fields and special metal alloys.
Its low cost magnetic refrigerants and new refrigerator system components will be used to replace compressors, condenser coils and gas refrigerants in existing refrigerators.
Magnetic refrigeration promises a number of benefits over conventional methods, including up to a 50% reduction in energy consumption, elimination of gas refrigerant leakage and ease of recycling.
Competitive price
Dr Wilson says Camfridge aims to deliver a superior product at a competitive price to tap into the potentially enormous world wide demand for high-efficiency refrigeration.
"This offering should be timely, able to provide the new 'green products' now being demanded in an environmentally conscious age," he says.
The St John's Innovation Centre-based company says that in mature economies, refrigeration consumes large amounts of total electricity generated. In the UK it is 16%, but it rises towards 50% in the US. It is estimated that $200 billion is spent each year on refrigeration and air conitioning application and services in the US, representing one third of the global market.
However, Camfridge is setting it sights higher: “Our aim is to create a toolbox of technologies for the refrigeration, air conditioning and cooling industries that will allow us to take advantage of the remarkable developments in novel materials and nano-scale research, harness them into cooling technologies and apply them to a broad spectrum of markets, including CPU cooling. Camfridge is in an ideal position to change the face of refrigeration and cooling technologies for the first time in 50 years” says the CEO.
Professor Derek Fray, a director of Camfridge and a world leading material scientist at the University of Cambridge, has said there is a "convergence of development in new materials, from new magnetic alloys to metal oxides that can be used in efficient active refrigeration technologies, but with the development of new nano-scale technologies a radical shift in performance of complimentary heat transport technologies can also be achieved.”
Camfridge is a spin out from the University of Cambridge's Department of Material Science and Metallurgy. ICamfridge's initial intellectual property - low cost magnetic refrigerants - is based on research by Professor Kay, Dr Neil Mathur and Dr Karl Sanderman.
Its current research programme is fully funded by Cambridge Cluster investors Cambridge Capital Group, Challenge Fund (one of the University's Cambridge Enterprise Seed Funds) and Nesta, the UK's National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Over the next six months, Camfridge is looking for for £2.5 to £3m of funding to expand R&D capabilities, develop commercial systems with industrial partners and further protect its IP position.
10th May 2006
