From Heat to Cold - The Thermal Energy Saga continues (ICE - Part 3)

I want to shift the focus from looking back to looking forward, from what was to what could be, and from one end of the thermal spectrum to the other.

📜 Beyond just another science Patent

US Patent No. 12-130-086 B1, in the grand scheme of intellectual property, it's a drop in an ocean of innovation, one in many millions submitted each year to USPTO. But once you get it, the technology stands at the intersection of some of humanity's most pressing challenges.

I'm not saying this just because I was part of it. When I began Sand Battery research back in summer 2022, I've discovered significant data-backed facts that very few people talked about:

We don't need more power, we need more storage! 🔋 The world is generating excess energy from renewables, that cannot be stored, a lot of it goes to waste, every hour.

Energy storage has been and will be a cornerstone of human transition to sustainable energy systems, any kind of storage. As we move away from fossil fuels toward renewable sources like solar and wind, the intermittent nature of these sources creates a fundamental challenge, sometimes known as the Duck Curve.

The conventional solutions has focused on electrochemical solutions like lithium-ion batteries. But thermal energy — just simple 🔥 heat and cold 🧊 — represents one of the most abundant, accessible, and underutilized forms of energy on our planet. It's all around us, above us, below us, waiting to be harnessed, stored, and deployed when needed.

This is why the Sand Battery concept, despite the journey's twists and turns, remains profoundly important. It's an important piece of the puzzle in solving global energy challenges.

Rethinking Our Relationship with Thermal Energy

Most of us have been taught and socially-conditioned to think about thermal energy in terms of direct consumption. When we need heat, we burn something gas, oil, wood or we convert electricity into heat through resistance. When we need cooling, we run air conditioners or refrigerators that actively remove heat from one space and dump it into another.

This approach is inherently inefficient by nature. We're constantly generating and dissipating thermal energy rather than capturing and reusing it. It's like filling a bathtub without a covered plug — a continuous input of resources to maintain what could actually be preserved.

A few years ago, I asked what seemed like a naive question: ☀️ "Why don't we store the sun's heat in something and use it later?" 🔋 Based on the principle of energy conservation, if heat in a "box" isn't going anywhere, it should remain available as energy to use, it's just not that easy to extract.

That simple question led to the Sand Battery concept. Sand, with its high thermal mass and low cost, proved an ideal medium for storing heat energy. The journey to develop this concept took me through unexpected territories — from technical challenges to toxic corporate dynamics, from innovation excitement to legal complexities.

But the fundamental question remains valid, and the answer remains compelling: we can and should store thermal energy rather than continuously generating and dissipating it.

⛰️ A Vision Interrupted but Not Extinguished

Before the events that led to my departure from Alternō, I had outlined a vision for building a Center for Thermal Energy Applications in Vietnam. This was about creating a hub for innovation, education, and application development around Thermal Energy technologies, probably the first of its kind in Vietnam.

That specific vision was interrupted, but the dream hasn't died. In fact, it has evolved and expanded in new ways. Sometimes, when one door closes, another truly blows wide open ...

⏎ Flipping the Thermal Coin: From Heat to Cold

In November 2024, as the situation with Alternō was becoming increasingly clear to myself, I took a small but significant step: I purchased the domain thermion.energy just because I liked the name (domain squatting).

At the time, it represented a faint hope despite the duress I was experiencing alone — I felt a possibility that if I could no longer work on the Sand Battery, I might someday work on its conceptual opposite: an I.C.E Battery for cold storage. When I did research and digging on Youtube, I found that cold energy storage is quite common, so I didn't think too much about it. On top of that, I presented this concept and business plans to the Alterno team, as well as all of the investors. No-one believed in it.

I never thought this contingency plan-Z would actually materialize.
Yet here we are 🙃

My life lesson this time: miracles would happen with just a tiny bit of faith and a lot of patience.

If the Sand Battery represented one half of the thermal energy spectrum: heat storage, then the ICE Battery represents the other half: cold storage. The principles are similar (heat moves from hot to cold), and the applications are basically limitless both ways.

Cold chain logistics, food preservation, residential space cooling, medical supply storage are are just a few of the areas where efficient cold storage can make a transformative difference. And in tropical regions like Southeast Asia, cooling represents an even larger energy demand than heating in many contexts.

❄️ Introducing Thermion Energy: Cooling-as-a-Service

So Thermion it is! A new venture focused on the other end of the thermal spectrum, but driven by the same fundamental insights about energy efficiency, storage, and sustainability.

Thermion's core technology — the I.C.E. (Integrated Cold Energy) Battery — applies thermal storage principles to cooling applications. By storing "cold" during off-peak hours or when renewable energy is abundant, and releasing it when needed, we can dramatically reduce both the cost and environmental impact of cooling (true zero-emission!).

This approach transforms cooling from a continuous energy-intensive process to a more efficient, storage-based service, shifting the energy demand/supply curve. Rather than constantly running compressors and air conditioners, we can charge our cold battery when energy is cheap and clean, then use that stored cold when energy is expensive or carbon-intensive.

The applications range from residential cooling to commercial refrigeration, from agricultural cold chains to data center temperature management. The potential impact spans from individual utility bills to global carbon emissions.

⭕️ From a Naive Question to Global Impact

Looking back at the journey from that initial naive question to today, I'm struck by both how much has changed and how much remains the same.

But the core insight remains unchanged: Thermal Energy is all around us, and by storing it rather than continuously generating it, we can create more efficient, sustainable, and accessible energy systems.

The USPTO patent for the Sand Battery stands as validation of that insight on the heating side. Thermion now inherits all of the lessons and carries that insight forward on the cooling side 🫡

The 'Eureka' moment

In this insane modern scientific discovery journey, the first Eureka moment I experienced was on 22nd August 2023, when Alterno team successfully ran the first industrial-size sand battery with only 800kg of sand for the first time. It was of course a memorable night 🍻

The second Eureka moment came to me on the 18th January 2025, when our team successfully ran a modified air-conditioner without using grid electricity for the very first time, powered by the - 22°C coolant liquid via a plastic tube from our cold storage battery system. As seen from the video below, I have to cut the audio because a lot of ... "fk it works" kind of language 🤪

Imagine you can blast the air-con whole day without guilt, without thinking about energy bill! The future is already here in my hands.

📖 The Next Chapter

As I launch Thermion and develop the I.C.E. Battery technology, I carry forward the technical insights from the Sand Battery journey, the lessons about innovation, collaboration, intellectual property, and resilience.

I'm approaching this new venture with the same curiosity as before with Sand Battery and the upgraded wisdom of experience. The path ahead will undoubtedly have its own challenges and surprises, but the destination remains clear: creating sustainable thermal energy solutions that make a meaningful difference in people's lives and our planet's future.

In the coming months, I'll be sharing more about Thermion's technology, applications, and progress. I invite you to follow this new journey, to engage with these ideas, and to join in exploring the vast potential of thermal energy storage across both ends of the spectrum.

The Sand Battery saga may be soon concluding, but the thermal energy revolution is just beginning. And in that revolution, both heat and cold have essential roles to play.

Will you join me in shaping the next chapter of an energy revolution? The future is ... Thermal!

Let's begin!

Thermion Energy – June 2025.