[Brief translation]
An environment-related business venture Xenesys Inc, together with others, has developed a heat pump that boosts conventional heat exchanger efficiency by 4-5 times. Geothermal heat can be used for heating and cooling. A heating and cooling system of this kind for commercial facilities is expected to become viable within 2-3 years. The system is being developed for use in Japan, which has a lot of groundwater. To improve the diffusion of heat from groundwater, instead of two lengths of pipe fused into a U-bend, four lengths are used. Titanium, which has high thermal conductivity, is used for the pipe material. It is stronger than conventional polyethylene pipe and is one-tenth the thickness, at 5 millimeters. It is easily processed, highly anti-corrosive, and lightweight-properties that facilitate construction. In tests taking into consideration the effect on groundwater, the U-bend pipe cross-section was 1.3 time bigger, but the heat diffusion effect was a remarkable 4-5 times greater. Further research will be done to develop a design that offers high performance in areas where there is little groundwater.