The Home Energy Recovery Unit Takes Major Step Forward on its Path to Market

The Home Energy Recovery Unit (HERU) has taken a significant step forward in its product development cycle, announcing the achievement of completely colourless exhaust emissions. This means the clever unit now complies with ‘smokeless’ regulations set out by local authorities – making it suitable for domestic installation across the UK.

The smokeless regulations are enforced to ensure safe emission levels for homeowners and the wider community. They outline a list of authorised fuels that can be burnt in domestic areas. Meeting full compliance means that the HERU is now firmly on the path to becoming a fixture in the family home.

Similarly sized to a standard boiler, the HERU uses pyrolysis technology to turn waste into energy. Simply place your black bin bag inside the device and the contents are heated (in the absence of oxygen) to produce energy rich combustible gas, liquid and solid fuels. By sending this energy to a standard heat exchanger it generates hot water for the home.

A newly developed Water Screen Filter (WSF) makes the exhaust emissions colourless by condensing any leftover volatiles that have escaped the initial treatment in the heat exchanger, effectively purifying the leftover gasses. The only required ingredient to achieve this is a small amount of readily available domestic of standard washing machine detergent. This means that the emissions from HERU are clean, safe and compliant with Low Emission Zones (LEVs).

Nik Spencer, CEO of Mission Resources, the company behind HERU, commented: “We have been working on this technology for a long-time now, trailing several different methods of purifying the HERU’s exhaust. As such, we are absolutely delighted to have identified this unique solution – another big step forward to full production.

“We base our work on meetings with local authorities, ensuring that we meet their needs for minimising emissions. HERU answers many of the waste issues we are currently facing, as well as solving future issues too, it is a truly revolutionary product.”

Dr Hussam (Sam) Jouhara of Brunel University London, technical director of the HERU project, added: “HERU is quickly becoming the perfect solution to our domestic waste issues. By developing the new Water Screen Filter, and successfully registering the intellectual property for it, we are much closer to providing a clean energy generation solution for the domestic environment.”

The Water Screen Filter (WSF) has been designed to minimise waste water, further boosting the system’s environmental credentials. The WSF is capable of recycling four litres of water for one HERU loading, and can even use rain water gathered from the roof of the house.

Field evaluations of the HERU will take place later this year, with full production expected to commence in 2019/20.