Space cooling for a hot company: Calyos’ success in the automotive industry

Calyos is a Jumet-based company that draws its origins as a spin-off of Euro Heat Pipe, a Belgian company leader in the market for cooling systems for space.

Calyos’ Loop Heat Pipe

The core innovation at the base of Calyos’ products is the Two-Phase Passive Cooling system, often referred to as Loop Heat Pipe or LHP, which was originally developed and refined for satellite cooling systems to ensure the thermal management of critical components in the harsh environment of space. After the spin-off the technology was licensed from Euro Heat Pipe S.A., with an exclusive for the non-space uses.

Calyos has successfully repurposed this space heritage to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in modern terrestrial electronics: thermal management in high-power applications. The technology offers a 100% passive alternative to active water cooling, which is crucial for reducing complexity and increasing reliability.

A booming non-space application for this is passive thermal management for Electric Vehicle (EV) electronics. This includes managing the heat of advanced electronics like the System-on-Chip (SoC) in Software Defined Vehicles (SDVs).

The company has already closed several agreements with major automotive manufacturers to deploy their technology in mass-produced vehicles.

An example of automotive application of a LHP

By providing a passive, highly reliable, and compact cooling solution, Calyos is strategically positioned to tap also into other rapidly expanding markets besides the automotive industry; for example: data centers, consumer electronics, renewable energy assets, and many more.

This successful technology transfer positions Calyos as a key player in next-generation thermal management and demonstrates, once more, that space innovations can have a significant commercial impact in non-space markets.

The European Space Agency, through the ESA Tech Broker program (implemented by Verhaert in Belgium), has all the interest in stimulating and/or facilitating the participation/investment of private companies in member states in this type of technology transfer, which can deliver new products, jobs and economic growth by increasing their competitiveness.