Akron, Ohio's reXorce Thermionics, a developer of low-temperature heat pumps that it says can use heat from waste, solar thermal and geothermal, took in $1.8 million in funding this week.

Cleveland investment firm JumpStart put $400,000 into the company, with the remaining cash coming from mTerra Ventures and Bally Energy.

"The Thermafficient technology has the potential to reduce energy costs significantly. At the same time it will reduce the negative impact on the environment. That is going to get a lot of people very excited," said JumpStart entrepreneur-in-residence Roy Phelan.

ReXorce plans to use the money to engineer and build a prototype and install the test unit at beta sites.

The company said its thermal engine can recover thermal energy from a wide variety of thermal sources that are transformed into useable electricity, cooling, and heating.

ReXorce said its Thermafficient pump uses supercritical carbon dioxide and other working fluids to create a power generating cycle that could be used in applications including bottom cycling in power plants, industrial waste heat, solar thermal, geothermal, and alternatives to the internal combustion engine.

The pump is based on a carbon dioxide absorption heat pump developed by NASA, according to reXorce.

JumpStart also has investments in direct carbon fuel cell developer Contained Energy, and MAR Systems, which is developing a process to remove metal contaminants from water and industrial fluid waste streams.