Emerging opportunities for high-temperature solid-state and gas-cycle heat pumps

Researchers from the Laboratory for Refrigeration and District Energy (LAHDE), together with an international team, have published a study in Nature Energy (Springer Nature), the world’s leading scientific journal in the field of energy. The paper offers the first comprehensive assessment of an often-overlooked opportunity: alternative high-temperature heat-pump technologies that could replace inefficient fossil-fuel combustion and direct electric heating in industry and the energy sector. Doing so could significantly reduce energy use, greenhouse-gas emissions, and thermal pollution.

Heat lies at the core of the energy challenge. Around 50% of final energy consumption is used for heating and cooling, and roughly 50% of final energy is ultimately released as waste heat—heat that is frequently discharged into the environment via cooling towers, the warming of rivers or seawater, and other outlets. The study shows that high-temperature heat pumps can capture this waste heat and upgrade it efficiently to much higher temperature levels, suitable for demanding industrial processes.

Today’s commercial high-temperature heat pumps are typically limited to about 250 °C, whereas many industrial processes require higher temperatures—up to, or even beyond, 1000 °C. The newly published research therefore systematically presents and compares alternative approaches that could enable a step change: caloric, thermoelectric and thermoacoustic technologies, as well as mechanical processes based on Stirling and Brayton cycles.

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-025-01908-4