To transform water-based cooling systems, Innovator Energy is transforming water itself.

“SolvCor is the only platform that’s able to increase the specific heat of water by almost 2x,” explains the company’s CEO and Founder Ethan Novek. “It’s a very novel, breakthrough technology. We have over 18 granted patents. Pretty much every large-scale cooling and heating system uses water as the heat-transfer medium, so you can make those systems smaller, more dense, and more energy efficient.”

Cooling and heating systems today utilize water in a variety of ways, from closed-loop, to open-loop, to evaporate systems. Increasing the specific heat of water—the amount of heat needed to increase its temperature—means that cooling and heating systems can have a lower pumping flow rate and a smaller temperature difference between their warm and cold water. 

This results in more compact, energy-efficient systems. SolvCor can deliver up to a 13-20 percent improvement in energy efficiency for chiller-based platforms, according to Novek—a shift that’s quite significant when you consider that cooling alone accounts for more than 7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Applications include data center, industrial, building, and district cooling systems.

“SolvCor is the next industrial standard for heat transfer in cooling systems,” Novek says. “It’s unlocking water so that we’re not limited by the limits of water. Enabling high-power-density cooling is a very fundamental shift.”

Novek began inventing as a teenager and has since been awarded over 65 patents spanning chemistry, thermodynamics, and clean energy technologies. In addition to SolvCor, the company has other technologies under its umbrella, including for power generation, zero-emissions inorganic commodity chemical production, and energy storage.

Innovator Energy is a member of both Greentown Houston and Greentown Boston, working across both cities’ climatetech ecosystems and launching pilots at both incubators.

“Greentown’s one of a kind,” Novek says. “It offers world-class piloting, prototyping, and wet-lab facilities, and the team consistently goes above and beyond to support the success of member companies.”