KCC Manufacturing Partners with Transaera to Scale U.S. Production of MOF-Based High-Efficiency Cooling

Transaera's next-generation dedicated outdoor air platform will be manufactured domestically at KCC's employee-owned Kentucky facilities

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- KCC Manufacturing and Transaera today announced a manufacturing and engineering partnership to scale U.S. production of Transaera's dedicated outdoor air systems, which use solid desiccants built on Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) to remove moisture before cooling. KCC engineers and builds the cabinet, supports implementation of Transaera's proprietary controls, provides systems-design integration, and supplies the domestic manufacturing capacity behind the platform. Multiple units have already been built, with a growing production pipeline.

Humidity, not temperature, is the expensive problem in most commercial buildings. Conventional packaged rooftop equipment handles latent load by overcooling the air well below the temperature the space needs and then reheating it, a sequence that burns energy twice. Traditional desiccant systems avoid the overcool-and-reheat cycle but replace it with a regeneration penalty, since the desiccant must be driven to high temperature to be dried out and reused. Transaera's MOF materials, an advanced class of engineered sorbents, release moisture at far lower regeneration temperatures. The result is desiccant-class moisture removal on an all-electric heat-pump path, in a package that fits existing rooftop footprints. Transaera has shown their platform to deliver 40 percent energy savings compared with conventional packaged DX-only systems, and reports that it has demonstrated more than double the current federal minimum efficiency standard for moisture removal.

"Materials science wins in a lab. Products win on a roof, and getting from one to the other is a manufacturing problem," said Joel Strieter, President of KCC Manufacturing. "Transaera solved the hard chemistry. Our job was to put that core inside a cabinet that can be built repeatably, controlled reliably, and serviced by a normal technician, and to build it here. That is the work that turns a breakthrough into something a building owner can actually buy."

KCC's scope spans the equipment around the MOF core. The company adapted its production dedicated outdoor air cabinet for the first-generation unit and is co-developing the next-generation cabinet with Transaera's engineering team, and supports the electronics implementation of Transaera's proprietary control sequences, along with the systems integration required to make the desiccant stage and the refrigeration stage behave as one machine. The arrangement lets Transaera scale its technology without building its own cabinet fabrication and production capacity.

"We were never going to scale this by building cabinets ourselves," said Sorin Grama, CEO and Co-Founder of Transaera. "KCC has been making dedicated outdoor air systems for decades, and they brought a production platform, a controls organization, and real manufacturing capacity to a company our size. Having that behind us in the United States is what lets us commit to customers on volume and on timing."

The partnership supports a period of rapid commercial momentum for Transaera. In May 2026, the company announced a multi-year collaboration with Amazon to expand deployment of its high-efficiency heat pump technology following a six-month field trial at an Amazon logistics facility in hot, humid conditions. Warehouse and logistics space, along with commercial buildings in high-humidity climates, is precisely where latent load drives the mechanical design, and where the economics of removing moisture efficiently are most visible on a utility bill.

"Latent load is where a lot of rooftop equipment quietly loses," said Kevin Muldoon, Director of Research & Development at KCC. "The conventional answer is to overcool and reheat. The conventional desiccant answer trades that penalty for a regeneration penalty. What makes the MOF approach interesting is that it removes moisture at a much lower regeneration temperature, which is what puts an all-electric path to humidity control genuinely in reach. Our role has been to make sure the system around that core performs the way the material does."

Each company's role reflects its core capability. Transaera develops the MOF-based sorbent material and system design, and KCC applies its existing dedicated outdoor air production lines to build and ship the platform. Additional units are in production, with volume expected to grow as demand for high-efficiency, all-electric humidity control increases in commercial and multifamily buildings.

About KCC Companies: KCC Companies is a 100 percent employee-owned company founded in March 1977 by current CEO Al Fiorini and headquartered in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. With more than 1,000 employees and approximately 800,000 square feet of manufacturing space across four facilities in Jeffersontown and Simpsonville, KCC offers a vertically integrated portfolio for the commercial buildings market: dedicated outdoor air systems and air handling equipment; roof curbs, curb adapters, and roofing accessory products; and dehumidification and energy recovery solutions for controlled environment agriculture and specialized industrial applications. KCC has been an ESOP since 2008 and is ranked #13 among Louisville's largest private companies. Learn more at kccmfg.com.

About Transaera: Transaera is a Somerville, Massachusetts-based technology company founded in 2017 by MIT engineers and materials scientists, developing next-generation cooling and dehumidification systems built on Metal Organic Framework materials. The company is a Greentown Labs alumnus. Learn more at transaera.com.

Media Contacts:

Becky McClellan • KCC Companies • [email protected] • 502.493.5768

Curran Ethridge • Circuitry Media • [email protected] • 706.495.4100

Emily Torrans • Mahoney Communications Group • [email protected] • 212.220.6045

SOURCE KCC Manufacturing