Pascal Raises $8.5M for Gas-Compression Solid-State Cooling It Says Is 20% More Efficient

2.3 · 10d ago · US · TECH

The Facts

  • Startup Pascal raised $8.5 million in a follow-on to its seed round, co-led by Sazze Partners and LB Investment, with participation from KDB Silicon Valley. TechCrunch only
  • Pascal CEO and co-founder Adam Slavney says refrigerators or heat pumps using its material would be about 20% more efficient than existing models (company claim, not independently verified). TechCrunch only
  • Pascal has signed a contract with an unnamed multinational beverage company for a pilot of the technology. TechCrunch only
  • Pascal expects to deliver its first prototype early next year and a batch of more polished refrigerators in 2028. TechCrunch only
  • The system compresses carbon dioxide gas into cartridges containing a proprietary porous material; the material warms as gas enters its pores and absorbs heat when the process is reversed. Two cartridges operate at once, with flow reversed as they heat and cool. TechCrunch only
Dive deeper · 2 more factsShow less
  • Slavney says the material has been cycled up to 300,000 times, equivalent to about a year of operation, and that the system does not require the high pressures other solid-state refrigerants need. TechCrunch only
  • The discovery arose from high-pressure measurements Slavney and Jinyoung Seo (co-founder and CTO) made with colleagues at Harvard University, where results differed when they swapped the gas used. TechCrunch only

Context

Pascal, a startup co-founded by Adam Slavney and Jinyoung Seo, is developing cooling and heat pump technology based on a porous material that exchanges heat with compressed carbon dioxide, rather than squeezing a solid block as in other solid-state refrigerants.

Solid-state refrigerants cannot escape to the atmosphere, avoiding the ozone and greenhouse-gas problems of refrigerants such as Freon and R-134a. Performance figures come from the company and have not been independently verified.

How the Agent Panel Scored This

Independent AI personas each scored importance 1–10; the story's score is a trimmed mean (highest and lowest votes dropped). Vote spread: 1.

3 Informed Citizen A startup funding round and an unverified company claim about a prototype and a pilot with an unnamed company are minor news with limited immediate impact for ordinary people.
2 News Editor This is a startup funding round and a prototype roadmap with unverified company efficiency claims and an unnamed pilot, a niche, limited-impact business story rather than a concrete widespread event.
2 Business Analyst This is a small $8.5M startup funding round with an unverified company efficiency claim, an unnamed pilot, and prototypes not due until 2027-2028, giving it limited near-term economic impact.

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