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摘要

As I write this, we in the South East have been experiencing a cold snap. In these conditions, bus operators have a daily challenge: warming up the seating areas. I'm told that on frosty mornings, many drivers switch on the bus and let it idle for 10 minutes - wasting fuel and polluting the neighbourhood air. More to the point, while a diesel bus would still have fuel to spare after that, hybrid electric models may not. Featuring in a new bus research project (with Vantage Power and the University of Edinburgh) is a clever chemical heating technology from Scottish supplier Sunamp. This relies on the heat generated during the phase change of a mineral salt from liquid to solid. Encased in a sealed heat exchanger with no moving parts, a 17-litre unit provides 7kW of sustained heating. And since the process is reversible, the device can be reused for thousands of cycles; the intention is to recharge it from waste heat. Even better, it can be used for cooling, too: an Innovate UK study (IDP12) with Paneltex, Route Monkey and LowCVP will see another heat battery installed as a fridge in a Fiat e-Ducato van later this year.