CEEE Co-Director Yunho Hwang Presents Groundbreaking Cooling Technologies at ASHRAE Conference

The escalating urgency to mitigate climate change requires innovative and sustainable cooling solutions. At the 2025 ASHRAE Winter Conference, CEEE Co-Director Yunho Hwang presented two groundbreaking cooling technologies that center researchers are developing:

Isothermal Compression for a Hotter Climate

prototype of near-isothermal compression Elevated temperatures can put added stress on air-conditioning systems and heat pumps, leading to lower cooling capacity, higher energy consumption and higher compressor discharge temperatures. As a solution, CEEE researchers have engineered a near-isothermal compression prototype to lower the compression work and discharge temperature by releasing compression heat simultaneously during the compression process. The compressor is one of the most energy-intensive parts of an air conditioner or a heat pump, consuming about 80% of the total power. Using isothermal compression – instead of the typical adiabatic compression – can reduce a significant amount of compression work and improve an air-conditioner’s overall efficiency.

Read more about this research.

Elastocaloric Cooling with Zero Emissions

UMD researchers are developing a climate-friendly solid-state cooling technology that could revolutionize the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration sector. Through a collaboration with the UMD Department of Materials Science and Engineering, CEEE researchers have developed an elastocaloric cooling prototype that takes advantage of the superelasticity of shape memory alloys that release heat when compressed and absorb heat when relaxed. The result is efficient cooling with zero direct global emissions. The UMD prototype uses nickel-titanium tubes, and researchers are continuing to explore and compare the performance of other metals, including copper alloys.