The Italian regulatory landscape on this topic has undergone a significant transformation in 2025: Legislative Decree 102/2025, which came into force on July 19, 2025, made mandatory certain Guidelines drawn up by the Ministry of Health in May 2015. The new obligations for prevention and control established in the Legionella Decree 2025 include:

• Mandatory monitoring activities. Activities are now classified according to a Priority code. Water monitoring is now mandatory in facilities beyond the previous regulations, such as hotels, sports centers, and restaurants.
• Preparation of the Water Safety Plan (PSA). The Water Safety Plan (PSA) is a mandatory risk assessment and management model for managers of internal building water systems.
• Appointment of the Internal Water Distribution Manager (GIDI). For Priority facilities, the role of the Internal Water Distribution Manager (GIDI) has been introduced. The GIDI is responsible for the building’s internal drinking water system and must be appointed. He or she is responsible for verifying that analyses and the PSA are performed.

Finally, penalties have also been increased, with fines of up to 30.000 euro for failure in compliance with monitoring parameters.

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A thermal machine that can be a dry cooler, or a refrigerating group, or a cooling tower. In this case, there are indeed four parameters required for the proper sizing of the machinery: the kind of fluid to be cooled and its flow rate; the inlet temperature, which is the temperature of the fluid as it comes from the process; the outlet temperature, which is the temperature of the fluid required when it goes back to the process; the design ambient air temperature.

Ambient air temperature that in case of a chiller is related to the condensation process, in case of a dry cooler is the temperature of the air that will cool the fluid. And finally, in case of an evaporative tower is the wet-bulb temperature, a key value for the evaporation process.

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Brazed plate exchangers are employed in chillers in function of condensers, in case of water condensation, or as evaporators, which means they function as exchangers between the evaporating refrigerant and the fluid to be cooled, being it water, non-freezing solutions or oil.

The reduction of the environmental impact of industrial refrigeration is possible thanks to the use of micro channel exchangers, plate heat exchangers having a plate design with small pressing depth, approximately 2 mm, or 2,5, 3 mm depending on the type of fluid employed by the heat exchanger.

The challenge is then to create a machine able to ensure the same thermal efficiency but using a reduced amount of refrigerants. The aim is to have less amounts of freon or refrigerant gases in case of release in the environment. Having smaller and tiny passages between the plates of the exchanger allows therefore to have reduced amount of refrigerant flowing, achieving the same thermal work.

Usually, the size of these channels in exchangers must have a certain diameter, in order to avoid fouling and scaling effects, depending on the type of application. In case of chillers, the water flows within the exchangers in a closed-loop circuit and gets filtrated at the beginning, then remaining always the same re-circulated. So that it barely contains particles that can cause fouling or scaling. Furthermore, the exchanger/evaporator works at very low temperature levels, surely lower than temperatures causing carbonates precipitation, thus a further reason why these exchangers are not prone to fouling.

For all of the above reasons, that’s why it’s possible to employ much smaller passages, in fact reducing the amount of refrigerant that flows within the exchanger creating refrigerating groups characterized with a much lower carbon footprint.

L'articolo Emission reduction from refrigerants in industrial chillers proviene da Tempco Blog.

The wind chill, or cooling effect caused by the wind, refers to that sensation of chilling coming out from a swim in the sea in the presence of wind. This sudden and intense sensation of cold is caused by the evaporation of water over our body, and this is due to the effect of evaporation of water on our skin that absorbs calories, energy.

This is exactly the same effect that happens in adiabatic coolers and evaporative towers, that allows to cool water at a temperature level lower than the temperature of ambient air. In fact, speaking about evaporative towers with customers, we always ask them the value of design wet bulb temperature, which is essential aimed to design and calculate the cooling tower.

Watching US’ standard ASHRAE tables, or also other climatic tables, there are always average dry bulb temperatures indicated referred to different geographical areas, both during the winter and summer season. These tables contain as well a column with the respective average values of wet bulb temperature.

Making it simple, wet bulb temperature is the temperature that is obtained wrapping the sensor, or bulb, of a common outdoor thermometer with a slightly humid rag. Suddenly it will be possible to see the temperature’s level going down, and this is the wet bulb temperature, that is the temperature of the bulb humidified, which is lower than ambient external air temperature. This is as well the reference temperature employed for the design of cooling towers, because that’s the lowest temperature that can be achieved, obtaining water coming out of the tower at a lower temperature. It happens taking advantage of the latent heat of vaporization, which is the energy that gets dissipated by water to evaporate, generating a decrease of the temperature of the water that gets cooled.

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The exchanger TCB3000A combines a series of patents and is made with stainless steel chevron plates and high purity copper foil. It allows to reach high compactness, with a size reduction by 50% compared to other similar equipments. The solution offers high transfer efficiency and high corrosion resistance.

The patented design of the TCB3000A exchanger integrates an air pre-cooler, a water separator and an evaporator in a unique thermal machine, ensuring low pressure drop and low dew point.

In its working circuit, air compressor compresses hot and moist air to the pre-cooler of the A Series exchanger, where hot and moist air exchanges heat with treated cold air. The chilled moist air then enters the evaporator, lower down its temperature and condensate water out by evaporation. On the next step, the air moves to the separator where condensate water gets separated from air thanks to centrifugal force and gravity. The exclusive no-mesh design of the separator avoid problems of ice and oil-clogging, without the use of filters and ensuring long working life. Finally, the cool and dry air goes back to the pre-heater to be heated to the required working temperature.

The unique 3-in-1 design allows to use directly outlet air, achieving a significant energy saving. The solution is also clogging free and easy to maintain, and is equipped with special patented leakage testing connectors.

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In order to ensure the proper functioning during the winter season, the main issue is represented by the temperatures going down to very extreme temperature levels. There are some tricks that are employed in these cases, the first being the employ of anti freeze resistances to maintain a certain minimum temperature of the water inside the tank, preventing it to freeze in case the tower gets arrested.

In fact, while the plant and the tower are working, water continually comes from the production process at temperatures of 30-40° C, and circulating within the tower it’s difficult for it to freeze. But it could occur that the process gets stopped, or the tower must be shut down for maintenance, or even due to vacation periods. The water inside the tank could then freeze.

When having big sized tanks, the anti freeze resistances are no more enough. An expedient is to insert some steam pipings, draining exhaust steam inside the tank coming from secondary processes, with an operation called ‘barbotage’. Further tricks are referred to the circulation of the water within the tower: as far as the temperature goes down, fans can be stopped, because the thermal transfer efficiency required decreases. Fans can then be stopped, or in case of EC fans equipped with inverters it’s possible to slow down the speed up to the complete arrest of the fans, as long as the natural ‘chimney effect’ of the tower will be enough to cool the water.

The more the water temperature goes down, the more the ‘chimney effect’ becomes exceeding, also for the thermal duties on the outlet of the tower. The next step is to stop the water from passing through the tower and directly bypassing it to the tank, in order to avoid that the water freezes inside the filling packs, clogging the tower. And also avoiding them to get heavy, with the severe risk they collapse inside the tower.

In case of prolonged cold temperatures, bulkheads can be installed to close the air inlet, limiting the air incoming which could freeze the water passing through or percolating from filling packs.

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Well, for technicians and operators of the sector, it’s clear that these are not pollutant emissions, but simply water vapor. Cooling towers are indeed very simple machines employed for water cooling in industrial processes, using the evaporation of water to dissipate heat. Evaporative towers have very low levels of power consumption, while on the other side they consume water in direct proportion with the amount of heat to be dissipated.

The huge plume coming out of the top of cooling towers is therefore simply water vapor, droplets of evaporated water that get carried away in the atmosphere. It’s easy to understand how not-skilled people can associate it with pollution and fine dusts, but it has nothing to do with that: the plume is nothing less than water vapor, becoming even more visible during winter season, clearly due to a difference in temperature levels.

The only side effect that evaporative towers can generate is that water vapor gets condensed in the atmosphere during the coldest season, creating ice crystals. When laying on the roads nearby industrial plants, they can become dangerous for the traffic of vehicles. That’s why very often, early morning in the winter season, it’s easy to see workers charged by the industries nearby throwing salt on the streets, in order to avoid freezing and the formation of ice layers.

Evaporative towers are therefore one of the most eco-friendly machines for water cooling, and among the most efficient solutions for water cooling in industrial production processes.

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Construction materials are similar to those employed for filling packs, being traditional plastic materials such as PVC and polypropylene.
Thermoformed droplets eliminators is the most employed typology. Also parallel fins separators do exist, but they offer slightly lower efficiency and are usually employed in other types of separation systems, not really much in evaporative towers. In the past, droplets separators used to be made in wood, but nowadays this is an obsolete kind of construction no longer employed.

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The installation of electric fans with EC motor and external rotor granted significant advantages, first of all allowing a reduction in power consumption, with an annual saving of 138.970 kWh, approx 1/3 of the amount of energy previously consumed by AC motors.

Despite a higher initial investment, the installation of EC motors had thus a second relevant benefit, due to the fact that this kind of technology doesn’t require maintenance costs, while maintenance costs for 10 years of operations on AC motors can be calculated in 72.000 €.

The retrofit substitution of AC motors with EC motors on the totality of refrigerated counters, evaporators and chillers in the supermarket granted then an annual saving of 21.527 €.

In this specific application, considering an energy cost of 0,11 €/kWh, the comparison for the totality of equipments is as follows:

Overall costs AC motors in 10 years:
– 12.800 € initial investment
– 72.000 € maintenance
– 381.568 € operating costs

Total amount on 10 years: 466,368 € – annual cost of 46.637 €

Overall costs EC motors in 10 years:
– 22.400 € initial investment
– 228.701 € operating costs

Total amount on 10 years: 251.101 € – annual cost of 25.110 €

L'articolo Energy saving, EC motors and cooling proviene da Tempco Blog.

The water to be cooled enters in direct contact with the air in the cooling tower, allowing the water to be cooled at a lower temperature compared to the environmental air temperature.

This is achieved thanks to the latent heat of vaporization that brings a wind chill effect, taking advantage of the amount of water that evaporates in direct contact with air, removing calories. The amount of heat removed by water’s evaporation is a relevant amount, called latent heat of vaporization, and is equal to about 550-600 kilocalories per kg of water evaporated.

And so, a cooling tower is a machine that allows to cool water in a very efficient way with a contained energy consumption. On the opposite, there is a consumption of water, dissipated due to evaporation, that must be reintegrated in the circuit in a greater quantity than the quantity of water dissipated, in order to dilute the concentration of salts obtained as a consequence of the evaporative process.

The reference temperature for the cooling potential that can be achieved in a cooling tower is the wet bulb temperature, that is the environmental temperature measured with a thermometer with a moist bulb. Usually, wet bulb temperature in a city like Milan, for example, is 26° C in the worse conditions, in July, when ambient temperature rises up to 35-36° C. In these conditions, the wet bulb temperature is 10° C lower than environmental temperature, so that it’s possibile to cool down water at a temperature 3-4° C higher than wet bulb temperature, depending on the design and sizing of the cooling tower.

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