Biogas dehumidification for cogeneration

15/03/2019

More on cogeneration in our new tutorial video on the Tempco Youtube channel (turn on subtitles for english). We’re focusing in particular on biogas, one of the most employed fluids in cogeneration plants. Produced from organic waste, the biogas represent an excellent fuel for engines employed for heat and electricity combined generation.

We have here a very virtuous production chain, an example of what is called circular economy, recovering wastes to obtain power generation. Shell and tube heat exchangers are the suitable choice for biogas cogeneration applications. Previous to the proper combustion cycle, the biogas must be treated in order to eliminate all the polluting elements that it gathers and also to extract all the humidity contained, which in case of combustion can damage the engines irremediably.

Biogas treatment include a part of thermal treatment for the dehumidification of these gases, which are usually at the temperature of approx. 34-40° C. The biogas is cooled down using a chiller working at very low temperatures, about 0° C, combined with a shell and tube exchanger with the cold fluid (water and antifreeze) flowing inside the shell. The biogas flows inside the tubes. The tubes are usually straight and sliding to facilitate cleaning operations from deposits that the gas can gather, but also to drain all the water condensed in contact with the cold flow of the glycol water. The condense must drain perfectly and get collected in a condense separator on the outlet of the exchanger.

The application usually requires long exchangers, in order to allow the biogas to flow inside the tubes as long as needed to ensure the complete elimination of all the humidity. Dedicated blowers send then the dehumidified biogas to the engine, and sometimes it can also be post-heated to obtain a proper combustion temperature.

Construction materials are usually carbon steel for the shell, without expansion joints due to the short temperature gap involved. Headers can be as well made of carbon steel, while the tubes can be made of copper. In case the biogas presents high levels of aggressive and corrosive elements, both headers and tubes must have a full stainless steel construction.

The tubes are pressed and, my personal choice, welded, in order to avoid any risk of leaks of glycol water from the shell inside the biogas flowing in the tube section.

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Atex thermoregulation in chemical production

11/03/2019

Chemical and pharma industry both require a fine and accurate temperature regulation of ingredients and products during the whole production process, as we have already discussed the topic several times yet. In Tempco we’ve recently developed an interesting application for a chemical company, with the supply of thermoregulation units in the production of additives for a series of different chemical products intended for various markets, lubricants, plastic, water and oil. The thermoregulating units are employed on production reactors.

The customer has heat transfer oil available at high temperatures, +270° C, coming from a boiler in the facility, allowing for the development of a heat recovery solution with an oil/oil heat exchanger on the heating circuit, enabling a temperature regulation of products in a range of temperatures between +10° and +200° C. Heating fluid is Therminol 66, while the working fluid is Therminol D12.

The cooling circuit is equipped with a water/oil heat exchanger, receiving water at 30° C from an evaporative tower, pumped into a heat exchanger suited for water at 10°C allowing future further extensions of the thermoregulation range.

The most challenging part of the project was the oil/oil heat exchanger, involving diathermic oil at very high temperatures and thus requiring an accurate evaluation of materials expansion rates, on heat exchangers, pipings and internal connections. We’ve selected special shell and tube heat exchangers with U-tubes design, which allow the tubes to move inside the shell without the need of expansion compensation on the shell itself. All the internal connections are flange joints and/or welded, with expansion compensation joints near the most critical sections for thermal expansion.

The units are in Atex zone 2 IIG execution for explosive environment, and are so equipped with:
– Atex thermostat for maximum temperature level control
– Atex pressure switch for maximum pressure level control
– Atex temperature sensor with 4-20 mA transmitter
– three port ON/OFF valve for heat/cold exchanger selection DN125, complete with a pneumatic actuator and shuttle valve
– Two port ON/OFF valve on water cooling circuit, complete with pneumatic actuator and shuttle valve
– Two port modulating valve on Therminol 66, complete with modulating electro-pneumatic actuator
– Two port ON /OFF valve for Therminol 66 isolation complete with pneumatic actuator and shuttle valve

Usually, this kind of applications have narrow installation spaces, so that we had to make the thermoregulating unit as compact as possible. At this purpose we installed the exchangers sloped, and it implicated special customized pipings with tailored components and additional evaluations such as material expansion projected on the angle ratio, the correct evaluation of angles in order to ensure the proper functional drainage and internal sections of the exchangers suitable for a sloped installation, and also special support structures which allow the heat exchangers to move for expansion compensation.

Finally, the flange connections are not only intended to avoid oil leaks, a very critical event in case of Atex environments, but they also provide an easy installation. Flange connections guarantee indeed to obtain correct installment values, while in case of threaded connections one or two thread rotations are enough to get off quota, increasing in addition the risk of oil leaks.

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T COIL dimple jacket aka flexibility in thermoregulation

01/03/2019

A new video in our Youtube Tempco channel (turn-on subtitles for English translation) is dedicated to a very interesting argument, a special kind of heat exchangers called T COIL. These are dimple jacket exchangers which are customized by design upon specific requirements of final applications.

T COIL dimple jacket exchangers are primary exchangers offering high efficiency and flexibility, and are realized by welding on their edges two metal sheets, also spot-welded according to a scheme depending on the kind of the flowing fluid to be employed. The welded sheets are then inflated using high pressure, obtaining a dimple with a series or internal channels where the cooling or heating fluid will flow. The sheets are usually made by AISI stainless steel, allowing cold deformation after welding without breaking.

This peculiar construction process allows to obtain a high mechanical resistance, so that materials with thin thickness can be employed. This characteristic allows to reduce costs while having excellent thermal exchange rates, lower inertia and thus higher thermal efficiency. T COIL series exchangers can be employed by direct immersion into the fluid to be cooled or heated, but also with clamp-on installation on tanks, pipings or machinery. They can work with a variety of fluids, such as steam, heat transfer oil, water and overheated water.

Industrial applications really are countless, in Tempco we already used T COILS in the food industry, chemical and pharmaceutical sectors, but also in the paper mill industry, and every year we develop and discover new applications in further sectors. Starting with the early applications for water thermoregulation, step by step we’ve got very further, for grain cooling, dust cooling or clamp-on applications on tanks in substitution of traditional cooling coils.

We are able to realize T COIL dimple jacket exchangers in standard sizes, the only limit being the sizes of metal sheets and coils available on the market. Our workshop can realize plates and exchangers with customized dimensions according to every application needs, offering different shapes and geometries to fit customer’s requirements and industrial processes’ thermoregulation needs. This construction flexibility allows to adapt T COIL exchangers to a wide variety of heating and cooling tasks in production processes.

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Mechanical seal troubleshooting part 2

22/02/2019

Chapter two on the topic of how to detect and recognize the causes of mechanical seal troubles, after the post dedicated to the problems related to lubrication. Mechanical seals can undergo a series of different kind of wear. An irregular wear can be the consequence of an excessive wear on bearings and in presence of vibrations.

Small amounts of tough particles in the fluids can also lead to corrosion on mechanical seals: by sedimenting on the seal’s surface, these particles act like cutting tools in a grinding machine, damaging contact surfaces. An intermittent spotted wear on the seal surface can also relate to an imperfect linearity of the seal surface itself, due to defective mechanical construction of the seal, or even due to a wrong mounting.

Mismatched materials and fluids
The right choice of seal’s materials is essential to ensure a long mechanical seal working lifetime, enabled by the compatibility between the seal’s material and the pumped fluids. A wrong matching can lead to swelling problems in elastomers, boosted by the high temperatures and the long exposure periods involved. Corrosion on mechanical seals can also be provoked by the incompatibility between materials and fluids, deteriorating the seal surfaces.

Installation and connections
The correct installation is also a key factor to preserve the conditions of a mechanical seal. Pictured here are two examples of damages related to a wrong installation of the seal, leading to cut or damaged OR and breakage of the seal ring.

Also the working pressure of the pump must be comprised in the range of design values of the mechanical seal. In case of excessive pressure, the seal can be damaged irreversibly. At last, pay attention to the rotation verse of the pump, to avoid a breakage of the spring. This breakages can happen with a wrong electrical connection of the engine, a pump installed in parallel without a check valve, or also with a return flow when the pump is off.

The Tempco Service is at your disposal to solve any doubt or needs.

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Exhaust heat recovery in cogeneration with shell and tube exchangers

15/02/2019

Let’s finally talk about shell and tube heat exchangers, employed in cogeneration applications. Many times we’ve had already spoken about cogeneration, and this new video on our Tempco Youtube channel (turn on subtitles) is dedicated to exhaust heat recovery from cogeneration engines.

A cogeneration plant is usually equipped with an endothermic engine driving a generator to produce electricity. Cogeneration stands for power and heat generation at the same time, also leveraging thermal energy produced by the engine. This is possible thanks to heat recovery achieved by a shell and tube heat exchanger on the exhaust fumes circuit.

Exhaust coming as waste from the endothermic engine in cogeneration have very high amounts of energy, making thermal recovery really advantageous instead of dissipating the heat. Here exhaust are at very high temperatures, typically between up to 550 and 650° C depending on the kind of engine and fuel employed.

For cogeneration heat recovery applications, shell and tube heat exchangers are suitable with straight pipes to allow cleaning operations, because exhaust can contain particles from combustion requiring some periodical cleaning maintenance. Construction material is usually stainless steel, especially for pipes and headers being in direct contact with exhausts. Diesel oil, biogas and methane exhaust can indeed contain acid elements exposing the components to corrosion, an even higher risk in case of high temperature conditions of cogeneration plants.

Working with high temperatures, heat recovery cogeneration applications thus also require special construction tricks: aimed to avoid failures due to thermal expansion, with unwanted side effects such as leaks, all the tubes are welded and pressed on headers, while the shell, which allows water flow employed for thermal recovery, is equipped with a thermal expansion joint to compensate the expansion gap between the shell, with water at temperature of approximately 90°, and the tube.

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Mechanical seal troubleshooting

08/02/2019

Mechanical seals employed in machinery with rotating components can be affected by a series of wear issues. The main cause of mechanical seal problems is related to the correct lubrication of the seal itself. These are the main signs and causes of a scarce or wrong lubrication in mechanical seals aiming to a proper troubleshooting.

Dry running
Dry running happens when there is no liquid at all around the mechanical seal. The absence of the liquid film generates friction between the faces of the seal, with a dramatical increasing of the temperature. The typical damage of dry running is the presence of burned elastomeric parts. The damage happens when the O-ring is in direct contact with the over-heated mechanical seal ring.

Insufficient lubrication
A scarce lubrication can happen when the pumped fluid has a very low viscosity, or when temperature at atmospheric pressure is higher than boiling point, or if there is some air in the circuit. In these cases, the heat caused by the friction can concentrate on small areas on the seal surface, with the result of even extreme heating conditions. Local alternation of heating and cooling of the mechanical seal surfaces can cause small radial cracks due to the thermal shock.

Absent or scarce flow
It happens when the pump circuit is working with the inlet valve closed. Heat generated by the friction on the shaft seal can generate very high temperatures. The temperature increase can thus damage elastomeric parts of the mechanical seal. In addition, it increases the risk of dry running on the surface of the mechanical seal.

Further mechanical seals problems can also be related to installation issues, failure in components or a wrong selection in materials matching. We will dedicate another article to analyze in depth the troubleshooting of these cases.

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Plates H and L, choosing corrugation in heat exchangers

01/02/2019

A new video is up on our YouTube Tempco channel (subtitles option available), dedicated to the kind of plates H and L in plate heat exchangers. H and L plates stands for high and low efficiency, referred to the thermal exchange rate achievable. Thermal transfer efficiency in a plate heat exchanger is indeed a result of the turbulence rate of fluids, depending upon the kind of Chevron angle in the plates corrugation design.

The Chevron angle in H plates is a dull angle, so that when overlapping the plates, rotated by 180° on each other, there will be many contact points leading to a very high thermal transfer rate. By the way, pressure drop will also increase.

That’s the reason why L plates are also available, having a more acute angle in the herringbone design of the corrugation. This goes with less contact points in the plates overlap, reduced pressure drop and also a lower efficiency in thermal exchange.

L plates are suitable for heat transfer applications using viscous fluids, not requiring very high thermal exchange rates.
H plates are suitable to obtain high thermal exchange efficiency with high pressure drop allowed, thus having pressure of a recirculation pump.

How to choose H or L plates in a heat exchanger? The selection is easily done by introducing the design values in a software to calculate a heat exchanger, values such as maximum pressure drop allowed, kind of fluids involved and their inlet/outlet temperatures. The software then determine the kind of plates, often suggesting the right mix between H and L plates in order to achieve the best compromise of heat transfer efficiency and pressure drop for the specific application.

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A new logo for Tempco… 4.0 efficiency

29/01/2019

Here we are introducing one of the anticipated and most immediate innovations that are driving Tempco into 2019, a new and redesigned image and logo for our company. The decision to come up with a new logo is due to the fact that personally, after so many years of activity accompanied by the old cherished one, I was really longing for something totally brand new for Tempco, representing a new course projecting Tempco into the web 4.0 and most of all heading to the lean efficiency paradigms of Industry 4.0.

The meaning of the new logo is strictly related to the concept of control of what is called secondary energy. Dropped out of the old binomial of heat and cold associated with red and blue colors, the new Tempco logo embraces a widened concept of energy, with a symbol that represents the control of a variable energy flow, being the color’s shade.

The idea explores a completely new way to face the concept of ‘Solid temperature’, remaining as our Tempco pay-off. The new logo showcases indeed a regular wave that can be linked to a heat or fluid flow, that becomes solid folding on itself. Making it in our vision a very effective, unique and original technical symbol.

And you, what do you think of the new Tempco logo?

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How does a plate heat exchanger work, Tempco VIDEO

18/01/2019

We wanted to make this 2019 a new year full of news, starting with a series of tutorial videos aimed to explain in a simple way the main working characteristics of some machinery employed in thermal energy management, such as heat exchangers and heat pumps.

I wanted to be featured in first person, and yes, the one you’ll see in these videos (in Italian language but with subtitles) it’s me, Valter Biolchi, owner and manager of Tempco and behind this Tempco Blog as well.

I wanted to dedicate the first video to the topic of plate heat exchangers, a kind of machinery that I’ve always considered as the most flexible and efficient in terms of heat transfer above all. Heat exchangers ensure indeed higher thermal transfer rates compared to shell and tube heat exchangers. This is due to the fact that fluids are moving inside the exchanger with a turbulent flow, even when the fluids have very low speeds.

The turbulent flow is obtained thanks to the design of the plates, which are then coupled each-other rotated by 180° in order to create tiny flowing channels with 2,5 – 3 mm width, depending on the kind of heat exchanger, forcing the fluids through the plates in a continuously interrupted and non-linear flow.

Another advantage offered by plate heat exchangers is the compact design and smaller size achievable with this kind of solutions, and most of all the possibility to obtain crossing temperatures between warm and cold fluids.

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Data center, how liquid cooling is gaining ground

11/01/2019

Let’ start the New year on the sign of continuity within innovation… We further go on indeed on the topic of cooling in data center, that we have already covered in our last year’s post. And we welcome you in the 2019 with a new Tempco logo, to be properly focused on in a future post of our blog.

Talking about cooling in data centers, we recently found an interesting article online that explains how the power increase in data center’s racks is becoming a problem for traditional air cooling systems, promoting the growth of liquid cooling, a topic we’ve already faced in the past months. A Gartner statement reported affirms that the air cooling is no more able to achieve the necessary heat dissipation in data centers where the electrical consumption is increasing by 16 up to 20 kilowatt for each rack. An increase in energy intensity that affects all data centers around the world, with liquid cooling solutions growing at a rate of 25%.

The higher efficiency ensured by liquid cooling solutions is naturally due to the fact that fluids can carry heat better than air, offering an efficiency in heat transfer 50 to 1.000 times higher. Liquid cooling offers a range of solutions, including water and special non-conductive fluids, and also the new groundbreaking innovations in nanofluids, special thermal fluids on which R&D around the world is very committed, able to increase conductivity and heat transfer capacity of common thermal fluids by the addition of metallic nanoparticles.

In liquid cooling for data centers, heat exchangers can be installed on the rear of the racks or by direct contact with hardware components, properly using non conductive fluids. A trailblazing and growing application is the direct immersion of racks in dielectric fluids, or even the construction of underwater data centers, such as the Natick project of Microsoft or the data center Green Mountain as well.

The trend raises new challenges for IT staff, traditionally scared by possible leaks of water and fluids in the presence of electrical devices. Elsewhere, the increase in computational power required from data centers is forcing to find new cooling solutions for servers and racks, employing water and liquids that are developed offering high security and protection for electrical components. A cultural change is thus necessary for IT administrators, with training programs aimed to prepare them to the technical transformation happening in the cooling systems for IT infrastructures.

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