# Inside the design review for our next heat pump | Airthium (YC S17)

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/feed/407389
- Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:407389
- Published at: 2026-10-12 21:23:39 UTC
- Updated at: 2026-10-14 00:12:20 UTC

## Author
Franck Lahaye

## Subject
Airthium (YC S17)

## Content
Last Thursday and Friday, we held a preliminary design review for Airthium’s next 10 kW prototype, bringing outside experts together with our team to examine the design and the physics behind it.We were joined by Professor Pascal Stouffs of Université de Pau, alongside Mathieu Doubs, a Stirling engine specialist. Professor Stouffs’s research spans thermodynamics, Stirling and Ericsson engines, and liquid-piston systems, making his expertise particularly relevant to our technology.The purpose was straightforward: challenge our assumptions, review our physics models, and take a close look at the engineering choices behind the next machine. Bringing academic researchers and fellow hardware developers into the discussion adds perspectives from both theory and hands-on engineering.These reviews give us an opportunity to question assumptions early and refine the design as we develop the prototype.The 10 kW prototype is the next step in our work to scale Airthium’s technology toward industrial applications. Our ambition remains the same: electrify the backbone of global industry by replacing fossil-fuel heat with efficient electric heat.Thank you to Professor Stouffs and the other experts who contributed their time and experience, and to our investors for helping us turn that ambition into hardware.=> invest in Airthium !