Description

Labonsale specializes in manufacturing extraction equipment, including cooling chiller systems that provide a consistent cold source for laboratory equipment. These chillers utilize mechanical refrigeration and are utilized in various industries such as pharmaceuticals, food processing, metallurgy, scientific research, genetic engineering, and polymer engineering where maintaining low temperatures is essential.

What Is A Chiller?

An industrial chiller serves as a crucial component in numerous industrial settings, facilitating temperature control for machinery, industrial environments, and process fluids by extracting heat from the system and dissipating it elsewhere. Its functionality hinges on the principle of refrigeration, wherein heat is transferred from a liquid coolant through various cycles such as vapor compression, absorption refrigeration, or adsorption refrigeration.

The process involves circulating the cooled liquid through a heat exchanger to regulate temperatures for equipment or other process streams like air or water. It’s imperative to manage the waste heat generated during refrigeration, either by exhausting it into the ambient environment or, for enhanced efficiency, recovering it for heating purposes. Vapor compression chillers employ different compressor types such as hermetic scroll, semi-hermetic screws, or centrifugal compressors, while the condensing side can be cooled either by air or water. In many cases, even water-cooled chillers utilize induced or forced draft cooling towers for cooling.

Absorption and adsorption chillers necessitate a heat source to operate effectively. Chilled water derived from these systems finds extensive application in cooling and dehumidifying air within medium to large commercial, industrial, and institutional facilities. Water-cooled chillers may utilize liquid-cooling via cooling towers, air-cooling, or evaporative cooling, offering efficiency and environmental benefits over air-cooled alternatives.

Chiller Cooling System Main Components

Chillers are composed of four essential components: an evaporator, a compressor, a condenser, and an expansion unit. Each chiller system also includes a refrigerant.

The process begins with low-pressure refrigerant entering the evaporator, where it absorbs heat and undergoes a phase change into a gas. The gas then moves to the compressor, which increases its pressure.

The high-pressure refrigerant travels to the condenser, where it releases heat to cooling water from a tower or surrounding air, condensing into a high-pressure liquid. This liquid then flows to the expansion unit, where a valve regulates its flow, reducing pressure and initiating the cooling process anew.

This sequence of events constitutes the refrigeration cycle, essential for the chiller’s operation.

1. Cooling Coil: Constructed from 304 stainless steel for anti-corrosion properties and easy maintenance.
2. Condenser: Eliminates heat from the refrigerant by circulating water or blowing cool air over condenser piping.
3. Oil Separator: Essential for separating lubricating oil from high-pressure steam, ensuring safe and efficient operation. Additionally, it absorbs water, filters impurities, and maintains pipeline system integrity.
4. Compressor: The compressor elevates low-pressure gas to high-pressure gas, driving the refrigeration cycle and facilitating process cooling by creating the required pressure gradient. Flow rate regulation is achieved by adjusting superheat at the evaporator’s end.
5. Plate Heat Exchanger: Offers high heat exchange efficiency, minimal heat loss, compact and lightweight structure, and extended service life.Filter Drier: Responsible for absorbing water and filtering impurities, ensuring the seamless flow of the pipeline system.
6. Evaporator: The evaporator, positioned between the expansion valve and the condenser, functions to absorb heat from associated processes and transfer it to the circulating refrigerant. Subsequently, the refrigerant is directed to either a cooling tower or an air-cooled system, depending on the chiller configuration.
7. Thermal Expansion Valve: The thermal expansion valve expands refrigerant to lower pressure, enhancing heat removal from the evaporator.

Details

Advantages and Features of the Chiller Cooling System

1. Energy Efficiency: During summer and high ambient temperature conditions, the cooling water chiller system facilitates water recycling within the system loop, conserving significant water resources.
2. Enhanced Efficiency: A single cooling chiller unit can cater to the cooling requirements of multiple external devices simultaneously, ensuring a continuous supply of low-temperature and constant-temperature water sources, making it ideal for condensation experiments.
3. Temperature Precision: Equipped with PID temperature control technology and a built-in PT100 sensor, the cooling chiller system ensures high temperature control accuracy. Additionally, it features digital temperature display for intuitive operation.
4. Safety Assurance: The cooling chiller system incorporates self-diagnosis functionality along with overload protection, ensuring high levels of safety during operation.
5. Versatile Compatibility: With the capability to be paired with a variety of instruments such as rotary evaporators, glass reactors, fermentation tanks, freeze-drying equipment, and biopharmaceutical reactors, the cooling chiller system offers excellent compatibility.

Applications

As a leading manufacturer of cooling chillers, our systems find application across various sectors including:

• Analytical Instruments: Atomic absorption spectrometers, mass spectrometers, polarimeters.
• Scientific Experimental Equipment: Molecular pump rotary evaporators, distillers, fermentation devices, lasers, and metal rapid prototyping devices.
• Biochemical Field: Abbe refractometers, atomic absorption spectrometers, ICP-MS, ICP, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometers, CCD cameras, biological fermenters, and chemical reactors (synthesizers).
• Material Field: Electron microscopes, X-ray diffraction (XRD) machines, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometers, vacuum sputtering plating equipment, ICP etching systems, and various semiconductor equipment.
• Medical Field: Superconducting magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, linear accelerators, CT scanners, low magnetic field NMR machines, X-ray machines, microwave therapy machines, and medical cooling equipment like cold caps and cooling blankets.
• Physical and Chemical Fields: Lasers, magnetic fields, various pumps (molecular pumps, diffusion pumps, ion pumps), and water cooling equipment.

Working Principles

• Phase Change: Liquid coolant undergoes a phase change to gas when heated, and reverts to liquid when supercooled.
• Heat Flow: Heat energy naturally moves from areas of high concentration to lower concentration.
• Boiling Point: The boiling point of a liquid decreases with reduced pressure and increases with increased pressure.

How Does a Chiller Work?

Industrial chillers operate on two main principles: heat absorption and vapor compression.

Heat absorption chillers use heat exchangers to extract heat from processes and dissipate it externally. These heat exchangers typically consist of piping containing coolant fluids like air, water, or a mixture.

Vapor compression chillers, on the other hand, circulate coolant through processes requiring cooling. This draws heat from the processes into the coolant, which is then circulated to a refrigerant system for cooling and readying it for the next cooling cycle.

Operating Instructions

• Ensure that the cooling chiller is placed in a dry and well-ventilated environment, with a clear space of at least 30cm around it to avoid any obstructions.
• Prior to operation, fill the tank above the low-temperature coolant circulation pump with the appropriate liquid medium.
• Ensure that the power supply connected to the chiller meets or exceeds the total power requirement of the equipment. Additionally, proper grounding is essential for safe and stable equipment operation.
• Upon activating the refrigeration switch, allow for a three-minute delay before the compressor begins operation.
• During chiller operation, adhere to temperature usage specifications, and avoid direct contact with the tank to prevent frostbite.
• When utilizing external circulation, meticulously inspect and secure pipe connections to prevent detachment and potential leakage.
• After completing experiments, sequentially turn off the circulating pump switch, refrigeration switch, and power switch for the instruments requiring cooling. Subsequently, deactivate the safety switch and disconnect the power plug.
• If the chiller will be unused for an extended period, it’s recommended to drain the coolant and rinse the system with clean water.
• Regularly monitor the liquid level in the tank and promptly replenish as needed to prevent equipment operation without sufficient coolant.

For facilities employing process fluids or heavy-duty machinery, the utilization of an industrial chiller system becomes imperative to regulate temperatures within processes and machine components. Gaining insights into the operational mechanisms of industrial chillers and exploring the diverse range of available chiller types facilitates informed decision-making tailored to specific cooling requirements.

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