Amazon is betting that Nobel Prize-based dehumidification can reduce its energy consumption

It’s not just about you: restaurants, malls and offices on hot summer days stay cooler than necessary. Air conditioning is as much about removing moisture as it is about cooling, especially in hot, humid climates like the southern United States, where buildings can be breeding grounds for dangerous mold.

“The reason the air conditioner blows so much is because they’re trying to reduce humidity,” says Soren Gramma, co-founder and CEO. TranseraTechCrunch said. “In some cases in commercial buildings, the air is so cold that they have to reheat it again.”

So Transaera has developed a new type of ventilation unit that is, the company says, much more efficient than current dehumidification technologies, saving users energy and money.

Amazon, which has been testing the unit for several months in Houston, recently signed on as a customer. Other companies are following suit, so much so that Transaera now has “nine-figure” customer purchase targets, Grama said. For Amazon, the spare purchasing capacity is over the next three years.

“Amazon sees this as a design solution,” he said. “Once they find a solution that works, they put it into their design standard and iterate across their building stock.”

The device, known as a dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS), can keep the air inside a commercial building fresh while also relieving the load on the air conditioner. It can remove 100 pounds of water from the air every hour, which means your air conditioner doesn’t have to work that hard.

The idea of ​​a DOAS system is not new, but Transaera says its unit is up to twice as efficient at removing moisture as current systems.

Transera’s secret sauce is a desiccant that covers a six-foot wheel that slowly spins inside each of its units. “It’s like silica gel on steroids.” Gramma said. The company will not reveal the specific dryer, but it depends on A Material class Which won its discoverers A Nobel Prize in 2025.

As air passes into the unit, the dryer draws moisture from the air, which then passes through a heat exchanger before being dispersed throughout the building. The stale air is drawn from the building along with the heat from the heat exchanger, which flows through the moisture-saturated wheel. The heat from this air releases moisture from the desiccant so it can be exhausted outside.

Transaera’s DOAS units will help the company reduce energy use and help it on its path toward net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, Amazon said.

Transaera is working with existing manufacturers, including those in the US, to build the device. Its dryer system is inserted into industry-standard commercial HVAC units. “It’s a similar replacement for the old unit,” Gramma said. “I think that’s what’s driving this demand — it’s an easy alternative.”