The path to artistic local weather options is paved with the skeletons of one million startups, however Blue Frontier needs to be totally different. Blue Frontier is chasing the dream of cleaner air con methods with its use of a concentrated salt answer, and outcomes are so promising that the corporate simply received a giant test from Bill Gates.

In the canine days of summer season, most of us attempt to gravitate to an air conditioned place to beat the warmth, however the difficulty with our trendy AC know-how is definitely twofold. One, it’s soiled—air conditioners are vitality intensive and may emit greenhouse gases like hydrofluorocarbons and carbon dioxide. Two, as local weather change continues to make episodes of warmth extra frequent, we’re going to preserve having to depend on this soiled air con to maintain us snug. Enter: Blue Frontier.

Blue Frontier is a Florida-based startup specializing in engineering the subsequent era of air con methods. The firm claims that their new know-how can cut back vitality consumption by as much as 90%—a determine so promising that Blue Frontier acquired $20 million from Bill Gates’ clear funding fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures. As it stands, Blue Frontier is trying to cater to non-residential buildings and new buildings that may assist a rooftop unit, with no indication on when/if this know-how may very well be scaled down into one thing like a window unit for an residence.

Blue Frontier didn’t instantly return our request for touch upon how their know-how works, however a report on the corporate’s web site helps illustrate the method. Blue Frontier says that the cooling comes from a proprietary salt answer that behaves as a desiccant—this salt answer is very concentrated through a warmth pump that evaporates a number of the water inside it, and is sealed from the ambiance till air con is required. When the concentrated answer comes into contact with air, it can dehumidify the air by absorbing water vapor after which cut back the air’s temperature via oblique evaporative cooling. So they are saying.

This is a kind of applied sciences that I’ll imagine after I see it. While Bill Gates’ stamp of approval is promising, and the science is steeped in primary chemistry and thermodynamics, there are one million different variables standing in the best way of seeing a widespread rollout of Blue Frontier’s product.