Tempco Blog articles

Brazed plate heat exchangers for CDUs in liquid cooling for data centers

05/06/2026

Tempco offers a complete range of brazed plate heat exchangers designed and developed specifically for the cooling needs of data centers, computing infrastructures in rapidly growing demand to meet the needs of new AI and HPC applications.

Among the cooling solutions offered by Tempco for data centers, particular attention is paid to the most innovative liquid cooling technologies, which offer greater efficiency in dissipating heat generated by chips – and therefore better temperature regulation – thanks to the superior thermal conductivity of liquids compared to traditional air cooling solutions. Tempco brazed plate exchangers therefore serve as a key technology for CDUs – Coolant Distribution Units – used in the liquid cooling of high-performance data centers, a strategic path to reduce the environmental impact of data centers, increase their sustainability and improve energy consumption efficiency (PUE, power usage effectiveness).

The improved thermal management made possible by liquid cooling also allows data centers to operate at higher power densities while maintaining high performance and reliability.

Illustrative image of Tempco's brazed plate heat exchangers ecosystem for CDUs in liquid coolig applications for high-performance data centers.
Liquid cooling for servers and electronic devices uses dielectric fluids, suitable for direct contact with chips and electronic equipment, in the case of direct immersion cooling, or for cold plates applications. Cold plates are special components used in the liquid cooling of electronic components, made of metals with high thermal conductivity (typically copper or aluminum). The chip or electronic component that overheats is attached directly to the cold plate, and the heat is transferred to it by conduction. Inside, the coolant flows through special microchannel structures, which greatly increase the contact surface with the overheated metal. The liquid then absorbs the heat and, via a small pump, is pushed out of the cold plate towards a heat exchanger or chiller.

In addition to the superior heat dissipation efficiency of the heat generated by servers, liquid cooling also offers another key advantage: compactness, allowing for the creation of high-density computing structures in data centers while saving installation space. The Tempco range of brazed exchangers for liquid cooling in data centers therefore offers very compact dimensions, which allow for easy integration into CDUs inside racks or in-row architectures, which can serve up to 10 racks.

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UL-certified temperature control unit for carbon fiber impregnation

29/05/2026

For an interesting customer application, involving the impregnation of carbon fibers and other specialty fibers, Tempco has designed and delivered a special diathermic oil temperature control unit with a maximum design temperature of 300° C. The unit’s operating temperature is 250°C, with a heating power of 24 kW (12+12 UL).

An important feature of this TCU is its construction in compliance with UL regulations, which establish safety standards for electrical and electronic equipment for use in the North American market. UL certification therefore allows our Tempco TREG units to be exported and installed for applications in the United States and Canada.

Image showing a Tempco diathermic oil temperature control unit for carbon fiber impregnation with UL construction.

This particular thermoregulation unit has a cooling section using a shell and tube exchanger with stainless steel core. The TCU’s power supply is 575V-3Ph-60Hz-3Ph+T. The oil circuit is finally served by a UL 100 liter, 30 meter, 2.8 kW magnetic drive pump. The choice to use a magnetic drive pump, as an alternative to traditional mechanical seal pumps, is based on safety considerations.

Magnetic drive pumps eliminate any type of mechanical coupling, instead using a magnetic coupling between the motor shaft and the pressurized oil in the pump impeller. The exclusion of mechanical seals in the pumping circuit therefore eliminates any risk of possible leakage of diathermic oil at extremely high-temperature, ensuring overall safety of the equipment and eliminating the risk of pump cavitation due to air infiltration.

Image showing a Tempco TCU high-temperature diathermic oil temperature control unit for carbon fiber impregnation with UL construction.

 

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Tempco’s spare parts ordering guide for plate heat exchangers

22/05/2026

To ensure high thermal performance and long-lasting durability, choosing original spare parts for plate heat exchangers is essential. To support users in the correct selection of original spare parts for plates and gaskets, Tempco has developed a dedicated Manual that allows customers to always ensure the highest levels of efficiency and operational safety for their thermal management plants.

The Tempco Service team provides technical support for component identification, compatibility verification, and the supply of appropriate spare parts. First, it is necessary to identify the exchanger model, which is the basis for any spare parts request.

The exchanger model can be found from:

  • Identification plate attached to the exchanger
  • Technical drawings or thermal calculation sheets
  • Tempco supply documents

It is also helpful to provide:

  • Number of plates installed
  • Gasket type
  • Year of supply or serial number

The two tables below therefore offer valuable support when requesting spare parts for heat transfer plates and gaskets.

Image showing the diagram for selecting spare parts for heat exchange plates in plate heat exchangers.

Image showing the diagram for selecting spare parts for gaskets in plate heat exchangers.

Finally, some helpful further tips:

  • Send clear photos of the plates and gaskets for quick identification.
  • Indicate the process fluid and operating conditions.
  • Tempco can provide plate reconditioning and regeneration with leak testing.
  • Keeping a spare set of gaskets reduces system downtime.
  • Observe recommended tightening torque values when reassembling.

 

Image showing the Tempco Guide to selecting spare parts for plate heat exchangers.

 

Image showing the Tempco Guide to selecting spare parts for plate heat exchangers, plates, and gaskets.

 

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Modulating power temperature control unit for a pharma reactor

15/05/2026

The photos below show a temperature control unit (TCU) for high-temperature diathermic oil, which Tempco deployed and recently delivered to a customer for temperature control in a pharmaceutical reactor.

Precise control of heating and cooling temperature ramps is crucial to achieve the chemical reactions between ingredients in pharmaceutical production recipes, essential for the efficacy and quality of the finished products and active ingredients.

The image shows a high-temperature diathermic oil temperature control unit for temperature regulation in a pharmaceutical reactor.

This TCU specifically allows to reach a maximum operating temperature of 300°C, thanks to an installed heating power of 300 kW equipped with a water-cooled section. The system’s efficiency is ensured by modulating power control in the reactor’s temperature regulation, achieved thanks to SCR thyristors. The TCU is finally equipped with a remote expansion vessel with a capacity of 1,500 liters.

The image shows a high-temperature diathermic oil temperature control unit with modulating power and heating up to 300°C for temperature regulation in a pharmaceutical reactor.

 

 

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PCHE as gas turbine performance heater in oil & gas applications

08/05/2026

Printed circuit PCHE heat exchangers also find important applications in the oil and gas sector, serving as Gas Turbine Performance Heaters. This type of application also offers the opportunity to turn heat recovery into a performance lever.

Gas turbines are extremely sensitive to fluid conditions, in terms of temperature, fluid density, and thermal profile stability. In many industrial applications (power generation, oil and gas, LNG, hydrogen-ready plants), precise control of gas temperature is essential to improve efficiency, reduce operational instabilities, and protect the equipment during transient conditions. This is where the Gas Turbine Performance Heater is involved.

A Gas Turbine Performance Heater is essentially a heat exchanger designed for gas preheating (air, fuel gas, process gas), with a controlled ΔT, high reliability, and often undergoing high pressure and continuous service. Typical applications include fuel gas conditioning, intake air heating, and heat recovery systems from oil/hot water/waste heat recovery circuits.

AI image illustrating the applications of PCHE exchangers in oil and gas plants as gas turbine performance heater, offering efficiency, compactness, greater operational stability, and increased performance.
Tempco proposes PCHE exchangers as particularly suited to this role, as they offer significant key advantages over traditional shell-and-tube solutions:

  • Extremely compact
  • Resistance to high pressures (tens/hundreds of bar)
  • Perfect thermal stability even with rapid gradients
  • Minimal fluid accumulation → safety + fast response
  • Channel geometry optimizable upon the actual operating point

In performance-driven turbine applications, this makes the difference.

PCHE + Turbine: a smart technical marriage
As a performance heater, the PCHE allows:

  • very precise control of the inlet gas temperature
  • low pressure drops (if properly designed)
  • easy integration into compact skids
  • reliable operation even in:
    ◦ offshore environments
    ◦ frequent start/stop cycles
    ◦ severe conditions (H₂ blend, dry gases, LNG boil-off)

When the focus is performance + reliability, the PCHE is often the most engineered choice, not just the most compact.

A double advantage is therefore achieved when increased performance is achieved by implementing a heat recovery system, and this is where the application becomes very interesting, when the PCHE is served by:

  • heat recovery circuits
  • jacket water
  • hot oil
  • process waste heat

The result is an increase in the overall efficiency of the system, a reduction in auxiliary consumption, and improved operational control of the turbine.

Tempco therefore positions itself as a strategic technology partner for the development and implementation of this type of application, providing not only the technology but also support for the engineering, in defining the actual duty cycle and verifying turbine-side pressure drops – a highly critical issue – and then ensuring the integration of PCHEs into complete skids and technical dialogue with EPCs and turbine OEMs. The PCHE is not a standard component, but a solution tailored to the plant.

In conclusion, the use of PCHEs as Gas Turbine Performance Heaters represents a natural, highly innovative evolution of high-performance applications in the oil and gas sector, effectively addressing the needs for compactness, safety, and control. Representing a perfect example of applied thermal engineering as a special and customized, non-standard solution.

 

 

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Thermoregulation for custom carbon fiber components

30/04/2026

Carbon fiber parts molding is a manufacturing process that involves special attention to temperature regulation, requiring high levels of precision and reliability in thermal control to ensure material quality and high mechanical and structural performances.

Tempco already has several applications of temperature control units designed to meet the specific thermoregulation needs of molding carbon fiber components. The unit pictured below is a temperature control unit we recently supplied to a company in the province of Bergamo, specializing in the production of custom carbon fiber components for high-performance vehicles as well as other applications.

Image showing a Tempco temperature control unit for thermal control in the molding of carbon fiber parts for high-performance vehicles.

Tempco’s TCUs have a wide range of applications in the automotive sector, supporting our clients in defining the design and engineering process using a DFM (Design for Manufacturing) approach, aimed at achieving an ideal balance and harmony on both fronts. Maximizing aesthetic appeal while simultaneously enhancing the mechanical and structural performance of the components.

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A promise made to the sea, first hydrogen refueling in port

24/04/2026

At the Baglietto shipyard, located in the Port of La Spezia, the first hydrogen refueling test from a dockside mobile vessel to a boat was successfully completed on April 1, 2026. The test confirmed the feasibility of low-pressure hydrogen transfer (30 bar) using an onboard storage system based on metal hydrides, which have proven to guarantee the intrinsic safety of this type of operation.

This is another important step towards the realization of Baglietto’s Bzero project, a true ‘promise made to the sea’ from the shipbuilder, aimed at implementing a green hydrogen production module on its yachts for zero-emission navigation. Using filtered and deionized seawater, Bzero will be able to produce hydrogen with a purity of grade 5.0 at a maximum pressure of 35 bar, using a system of AEM electrolyzers (for a total power of approximately 55 kW), powered mainly by energy from renewable sources.

Image illustrating the green hydrogen production systems using electrolyzers and fuel cells for zero-emission navigation onboard in Baglietto's Bzero yacht.

Baglietto’s zero-emission yacht for sustainable navigation uses photovoltaics to power electrolyzers, which produce green hydrogen directly from seawater. These in turn power an onboard PEM fuel cell system, enabling navigation in full-electric or hybrid mode. The propulsion system is automatically selected by the yacht’s advanced navigation systems to ensure the best balance between performance and efficiency. The cooling systems provided by Tempco, one of the partners in this important project, play a key role in the entire process: precise, constant, and reliable temperature regulation of all the yacht’s power electronics.

Image illustrating Baglietto's Bzero yacht for zero-emission navigation with hybrid or full electric hydrogen propulsion modes.

Going more in depth, as detailed by Baglietto itself, the hydrogen produced is stored in solid state, at low pressure and ambient temperature, inside metal hydrides tanks (MH storage). The hydrogen storage and release process is managed by a thermal management system that heats the metal hydrides during discharge and cools them during recharging. The required thermal energy is recovered from the heat generated by a PEM fuel cell module, with a capacity of approximately 185 kW, which uses hydrogen as fuel to produce zero-emission and zero-noise electricity. The generated power is regulated via a DC/DC converter on a 700 V DC central bus, a solution already tested on Baglietto yachts equipped with hybrid technology. Connected in parallel to the fuel cell on the same bus is a set of lithium-ion batteries designed to absorb peaks and sudden variations in user energy demand.

Image of the prototype for operational testing of Baglietto's Bzero zero-emission yacht, built at the Port of La Spezia.

The operations conducted on the prototype created in port are aimed at optimizing the technical aspects to obtain the necessary RINA certifications for hydrogen tank refueling operations and speeding up the procedure, while also ensuring the highest levels of process safety.

 

 

 

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Temperature control units in high-efficiency combustion engine test benches

17/04/2026

We are pleased to present two important applications of our Tempco TREG temperature control units, which we have supplied within the last years to the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Bologna. These units are used in test benches as part of research and development to improve the efficiency of combustion techniques in traditional engines, with the aim of increasing the sustainability of internal combustion engines, especially looking forward at the growing use of new synthetic fuels.

These activities are crucial for the future of sustainable mobility, essential for the development of more sustainable technologies for the future of the automotive industry. We therefore extend our sincere thanks to Giacomo Silvagni, PhD Assistant Professor at Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna, responsible for these projects at the University Department, who provided us with detailed information on two of the ongoing research projects.

Image showing Tempco TCU temperature control units for test bench applications

The first image, in the scheme below, shows the construction of a flow bench for experimental diesel and gasoline common rail GDI (Gasoline Direct Injection) injectors, aimed at hydraulic characterization of the injection system and the development of control-oriented models.

As Giacomo Silvagni explains, high-pressure injection systems are typically used in control strategies with multiple, closely spaced injections. These strategies generate dynamic pressure wave effects and electromagnetic interactions that induce deviations from the normal injector operation, causing imbalances in the torque delivered by the engine from cylinder to cylinder, resulting in reduced efficiency and increased pollutant emissions. Thanks to the flow bench, built within the laboratories of the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna, it was possible to carry out ad hoc experimental campaigns to experimentally characterize the tested injection systems, both diesel (up to 1,800 bar) and gasoline (up to 700 bar), and to develop control-oriented physical models aimed at real-time compensation of these dynamic phenomena compatible with standard engine control units.

Image showing the construction scheme of a flow test bench with a Tempco TCU temperature control unit for the study of high-pressure injection systems for high-efficiency combustion engines.

For this first application, the Tempco temperature control unit was a central component of the test system, used to regulate the fuel temperature within the injection systems. The TCU therefore allowed for precise control of the fluid temperature, which is crucial for ensuring the repeatability of the experimental tests, and simultaneously verified the impact of different fuel temperatures on the system’s hydraulic dynamics.

The other two images below relate to the study for converting a 1.3-liter multijet diesel engine to operate on compression-ignition gasoline, aimed at studying high-efficiency combustion modes.

The study of innovative, high-efficiency, low-emission combustion methods is part of the ongoing development of internal combustion engines for high-efficiency, low-emission applications. Innovative combustion methods still represent one of the most promising solutions, especially considering the advent of synthetic and sustainable fuels. To verify the benefits of these technologies, a small 1.3-liter multijet internal combustion engine, originally designed for diesel compression ignition, was converted to GCI (Gasoline Compression Ignition) operation in the laboratories of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Bologna. This activity allowed to verify the benefits of this combustion method, both in terms of efficiency and pollutant emissions, compared to traditional diesel operation. The entire engine operating range was replicated while maintaining all internal engine components in their stock production configuration, thus verifying their full applicability to off-the-shelf hardware already on the market.

Image showing the construction scheme of a test bench with a Tempco TCU temperature control unit for the study of innovative, high-efficiency combustion methods as alternatives to traditional diesel technologies.

The Tempco temperature control unit, as Silvagni further explains, was a central element of the test system as it was used to regulate the temperature of the air drawn into the engine during start-up. Thanks to the Tempco temperature control unit and the use of a dedicated air-oil heat exchanger, it was possible to increase the temperature of the air drawn into the engine before it entered the combustion chamber, thus promoting spontaneous ignition of the gasoline. The precise control achieved by the Tempco system also allowed to verify the impact of different combustion air temperatures on combustion stability and engine performance in terms of torque/power output and pollutant emissions.

Image showing the test bench with a Tempco TREG temperature control unit built at the University of Bologna for the study of innovative, high-efficiency combustion methods as alternatives to traditional diesel technologies.

 

 

 

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Temperature control units for reactors at -30° C in the pharma industry

10/04/2026

Within the last few months, Tempco have supplied several TREG temperature control units and temperature control solutions for a variety of applications in the chemical industry, specifically a -30° C chiller for temperature control in the production processes of new products, and in the pharmaceutical sector, with plate heat exchangers for mono-fluid thermostating of several reactors at -25°C, for a major Italian API manufacturing group that already employs Tempco temperature control systems for the temperature recipes of its production reactors.

Image showing some Tempco TREG and TCU temperature control units supplied for mono-fluid thermostating of reactors in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Also for pharmaceutical applications, we recently supplied three TREG temperature control units for silicone fluids in glass-lined reactors. This is a classic mono-fluid temperature control application, equipped with heating via electric resistors and a low-temperature cooling section (-30°C) using brazed plate heat exchangers and mixing valves.

AI image illustrating a typical application in the pharmaceutical industry of Tempco TREG temperature control units for mono-fluid thermostating of production reactors.

Temperature ramps control is achieved through dedicated electronic thermoregulators and thyristors (SCR), which allow the customer to drive the heating elements with modulating power. Finally, the thermal control units work with special pumps, featuring magnetic drive technology and a very wide temperature range of -30/+300° C.

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Tempco’s PCHE exchangers at the mcT Hydrogen on April 14

03/04/2026

Tempco will be attending mcT Hydrogen, taking place in Italy at the Bergamo Exhibition Center on April 14th, where it will showcase its innovative PCHE printed circuit exchangers technology for industrial hydrogen applications and the Oil & Gas sector.

Mostra fiera idrogeno is a vertical event, now in its sixth year, organized by EIOM Fiere and dedicated to the wide range of the most innovative industrial technologies and solutions for the hydrogen supply chain.

You can pre-register for the event on this page.

Tempco’s PCHE exchangers represent an innovative technology that offers high performance to meet the critical requirements of hydrogen applications, such as extreme pressures and variable temperatures. The construction by diffusion bonding, or solid-state welding, of the plate pack allows these exchangers to operate at pressures up to 900 bar and beyond, thanks to their high structural integrity, which ensures operational reliability and high safety.

Image showing a PCHE exchanger for high-pressure hydrogen cooling and applications in the hydrogen supply chain.

The photo-etching technique empployed for the plates allows to create customized layouts of heat transfer microcircuits, allowing PCHEs to be built in multistream mode, as required by the multistage compressors used in hydrogen refueling stations. This ensures extremely high heat transfer efficiency, rapid refueling, and installation in small spaces thanks to the exchanger’s highly compact design.

AI image illustrating the applications of PCHE exchangers in the oil & gas sector, such as turbine preheaters and gas cooling on GLN extraction platforms.

mcT Hydrogen is held concurrently with several other events, including mcT Oil & Gas and Security, a sector in which Tempco PCHE exchangers find equally important and interesting applications, such as pre-heaters in high-performance turbines and on GLN extraction platforms for gas cooling.


 

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TEMPCO researches and develops systems and solutions for cooling, heating, control temperature and heat exchange in different industrial processes.

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