Evapco, a U. S.-based manufacturer of industrial ammonia( R717) and CO 2( R744) refrigeration systems and components, has launched eco-Air Titan, an air-cooled heat exchanger for large-scale heat rejection duty for battery plants, data centers, industrial processing, and power generation. The company is expanding production in the U. S., Belgium, |
and China due to high demand, according to Business Development Manager Troy Reineck. The new unit – applicable to natural refrigerant systems, including ammonia and CO 2
– operates on the condensing side of a refrigerant system. It cools circulating water or glycol with Titan’ s up-to-20ft( 6.1m)-wide fans, according to Troy Reineck, Business Development Manager at Evapco.
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Germany’ s Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques( Fraunhofer IPM) is developing new solid-state heat pumps that do not utilize compressors and are reportedly more efficient than compressor-based counterparts. In conventional heat pumps, compressors move the refrigerant through the refrigeration cycle and the heat exchanger to extract heat from the source. Rotary and scroll compressors are commonly utilized in commercially available heat pumps. The researchers utilized, instead, active elastocaloric heat pipes( AEH) to enhance the heat transfer rate and achieve latent heat transfer through the evaporation and condensation of the fluid on the caloric material, with ethanol and water being used as fuels. The research team also utilized super-hydrophilic layers developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Electron Beam and Plasma Technology( Fraunhofer FEP) to make evaporation |
from the surface particularly efficient and a process to embed the electrodes of the electrocaloric segments in epoxy resin, which was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Structural Durability and System Reliability( Fraunhofer LFB), to prevent electrical breakdowns. Moreover, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics( Fraunhofer IAF) designed a multilevel DC / DC converter based on gallium nitride( GaN) to improve the heat pumps’ electrical controls. The device reportedly helped the system achieve an electrical efficiency of 99.74 %, a value that is said to set new global standards in conversion efficiency, as efficiency previously stood below 90 %. The new technology is part of ElKaWe, short for electrocaloric heat pump research, a research collaboration of six Fraunhofer Institutes under the direction of Fraunhofer IPM. |