Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert the chemical energy of hydrogen into electrical energy with high efficiency, producing water and heat as a byproduct. Green hydrogen (green H2) is therefore hydrogen generated from renewable energy sources, with no carbon emissions. Water electrolysis is the most commonly used method for hydrogen generation, using a chemical reaction that separates hydrogen from oxygen.

As a green energy, green hydrogen can therefore be used in a variety of sectors, replacing fossil fuels and promoting the energy transition. Green hydrogen can be used for fuel cells, but it can also serve as a direct energy source for aviation, marine, automotive, and heavy-duty transportation, as well as for on-site industrial power generation.

Regardless of the type of electrolytic cell technology – be it PEMEC (proton exchange membrane electrolyzer), AEMEC (anion exchange membrane electrolyzer), AEL (alkaline electrolyzer), SOEC (solid oxide electrolyzer), or any other electrolysis technology – brazed exchangers offer high-value, high-efficiency solutions for electrolysis equipment, electrolytes, reaction water and gas preheating, working fluid cooling, and system energy recovery.

For these hydrogen applications, Kaori offers two types of brazed plate exchangers: the high-nickel alloy exchangers are the ideal solution for high-temperature SOEC/SOFC applications, capable of operating at temperatures up to 900°C. The new full-stainless steel brazed exchangers use stainless steel as the brazing filler material. This makes them suitable for hydrogen generation via PEM electrolysis and for fuel systems, or for low-conductivity deionized water that does not allow the passage of copper ions.

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One of the most common applications for high-pressure exchangers is gas cooling in compressors, as shown in the photo below: a high-pressure compression system for technical gases, where the exchangers are used to dissipate the heat generated during compression. In these systems, robustness and mechanical sealing are essential to ensure safety, continuity of service, and longevity.

Therefore, these are some of the main advantages offered by this special type of high-pressure brazed exchangers:

• Compact design and simplified installation

• High mechanical resistance, up to 140 bar

• No routine maintenance thanks to the absence of gaskets• High heat exchange efficiency even at low flow rates

• Customized versions available for specific gases, oils, or process fluids

The high-pressure versions of brazed exchangers are also used in heat recovery systems, CO₂ hydraulic circuits, HVAC systems for transcritical refrigerants, and in the hydrogen sector, where operating conditions require absolutely reliable equipment.

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For this reason, we have been promoting the Tempco Service for years, a periodic maintenance program tailored specifically for our TREG thermoregulation units, cooling systems, thermoregulation skids, and custom control units.

The Tempco service specifically includes:

• complete check of operating parameters;
•  exchanger performance verification;
• pump, valve, seal, and sensor inspection;
• heat transfer fluid analysis and recommendation for replacement;
• software updates and regulator calibration;
• advance notification of components requiring replacement.

The customer benefit is therefore very simple: zero surprises and maximum operations continuity. Scheduled maintenance allows also to:

• avoid unexpected downtime;
• keep energy consumption under control;
• extend the life of your machines;
• plan budgets and production downtime;
• have priority access to our technical support.

Service also provides an opportunity to propose upgrades or new energy efficiency solutions, such as optimizing thermal cycles or introducing more efficient heat recovery systems.

At Tempco, we therefore don’t see maintenance as a ‘cost’, but rather as an investment to ensure that thermal machines perform exactly as they did on day one, along with the opportunity to continuously improve and optimize the operational efficiency of your thermal management and temperature control systems.

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With original Tempco spare parts, however, the customer knows exactly what they’re installing, with the peace of mind of ensuring:

• materials compatible with the process fluid;
• guaranteed performance tested on our systems;
• compliance with pressure and temperature specifications;
• long-term reliability thanks to the selection of suppliers we’ve worked with for years.

The difference, therefore, lies not only in the quality of the components themselves, but also directly impacts operational continuity: a correct gasket maintains the efficiency of the exchanger; a certified pump guarantees effective flow; consistent resistance prevents overheating or excessively frequent start-up cycles.

Furthermore, in a heating system, every deviation generates inefficiencies and hidden costs: higher energy consumption, longer rise/fall times in temperature, and micro-stoppages in production.

For all these reasons, at Tempco we always remind our customers that an original spare part costs less than a system downtime.

Tempco offers a dedicated service for the rapid supply of spare parts, even for older or custom-built machines. Keeping your systems in ideal condition thus means preserving their useful life, ensuring consistent performance.

L'articolo Efficiency and operational continuity: original spare parts make the difference proviene da Tempco Blog.

Cogeneration plants involve different applications for heat exchangers, as they allow to further increase the efficiency of the process. The use of heat exhangers in cogeneration starts from the pre-treatment of the biogas, an operation aimed at eliminating the impurities and humidity present in the biofuel to preserve the engine, up to the heat recovery from the exhaust fumes of the engine itself using shell and tube exchangers, maximizing the amount of thermal energy that the system can generate.

In this case, the Tempco exchangers work both on the jackets, with a brazed plate exchanger, and on heat recovery from exhaust fumes, with a shell and tube exchanger.

After 11 years of work, the customer then called us requiring a replacement of the gaskets on the flanges, which had worn out over time. At the time of installation, Tempco had supplied the exchangers, while the customer preferred to rely on another supplier for the gaskets, although to be fair, these are anyway components subject to wear and therefore requiring maintenance.

Overall, we can say that we are very satisfied with the successful application realized for this customer.

L'articolo Exchangers in cogeneration plant operating for over ten years proviene da Tempco Blog.

But there are also applications which are not necessarily involving an energy recovery task, but they necessarily require the cooling of the served production process. In this specific case, free flow exchangers are employed in the pulp and paper industry which includes sectors that are processing paper pulp, and therefore, clearly before paper sheets are shaped, involving the use of water full of suspended solid particles.

Another similar application where we use several of these exchangers is related to the plastic grains production industry. Even in this case, the process water that must be cooled is highly dirty and full of suspended solid particles.

These are plate heat exchangers, and they present a peculiar construction, as we have already seen. Someone objected, well having no contact points between the plates, what level of differential pressure they can stand.
Clearly, they can stand lower differential pressures compared to classic plate heat exchangers. That’s the reason why, in this case, plates have a higher thickness, starting with 0,8 or 1 mm, depending on the size of the plate. They are usually quite big plates and they have low resistance, and thus low design project pressures arriving up to PN6, PN10, rarely PN16.

But, after all, the kind of applications they are employed in never require high working pressures, usually limited to the circulating pressure of a centrifugal pump, and that means 3 or 4 bar.

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These are special plate heat exchangers with very large passage channels and without contact points among the plates, and that’s the reason why they are called free flow.

In fact, as you can see in the pictures in the video below, the channel is very large and with no contact points between the plates. This involves clearly a negative effect in terms of thermal transfer efficiency, because the thermal transfer coefficients are lowered by having these large passage channels. But otherwise these exchangers offer great advantages when working with dirty fluids or containing solid suspended particles.

This is the typical case with cooling or for energy recovery from fluids coming from the industrial process in sectors such as paper mill or textile. An interesting application of these plate heat exchangers is in the textile production, where it’s possible to recover energy from the hot water coming from the dyeing tanks for fabrics dyeing, aimed at the pre-heating of the water that is going to be used to fill the tanks. In fact, it’s possible to reuse the thermal energy contained in the waste hot water coming from the dyeing process by letting it into the free flow exchanger, using it to heat the water that will be used for the new dyeing baths.

This really is a heavy duty application where a traditional plate heat exchanger couldn’t be employed. Instead, this application can be achieved with heat exchangers having a lower transfer efficiency but offering easy maintenance and that get not clogged. Free Flow plate heat exchangers are employed in substitution of those kind of exchangers that at this point become obsolete, with in fact a low thermal transfer efficiency.

L'articolo Free flow exchangers for thermal energy recovery in the textile industry proviene da Tempco Blog.

In this regard, the article dedicated to Tempco in last January’s issue of ICP magazine deals with PCHE (printed circuit heat exchangers). These special brazed plate heat exchangers are obtained thanks to an innovative solid-state diffusion welding process, called diffusion bonding, that makes it possible to obtain very compact heat exchangers, with very high efficiency and characterized by extreme robustness of the plate pack. PCHE exchangers are therefore able to meet the challenging application requirements of technologies that exploit hydrogen in fuel cells, being able to work at extreme pressure and temperature levels, in a range that goes from cryogenic temperatures at -250° C up to +400° C, or even higher using very particular alloys.

Regardless of the type of electrolysis technology employed, Tempco can therefore provide high-value thermal solutions for electrolysis equipment, electrolytes, working fluid cooling and heat recovery tasks. An interesting ongoing project involves the implementation of these exchangers for the cooling of power electronics in the zero-emission yacht Bzero built by Baglietto, which uses fuel cell technology with green hydrogen obtained from sea water.

L'articolo Heat exchangers, hydrogen, cooling and fuel cells proviene da Tempco Blog.

Among the different types of heat exchangers included in Tempco portfolio of solutions, particularly suitable for new applications in the hydrogen industry for Green Energy are the FULL STAINLESS STEEL and PCHE plate exchangers, printed circuit exchangers completely made in stainless steel suitable for hydrogen generation and fuel systems using PEM electrolysis or low conductivity deionized water.

Regardless of the type of electrolysis technology, Tempco can provide high-value thermal solutions employing brazed plate heat exchangers for electrolysis equipment, electrolytes, working fluid cooling and process heat recovery. Tempco thermal systems can be used in heating and cooling cycles for the production and use of hydrogen.

An important and interesting application case study recently developed regadrs the collaboration with Baglietto for the creation of the Bzero yacht, which opens the doors to zero-emission boating.

From water to energy, Tempco’s contribution to achieve this goal consists in the provision of on-board power electronics cooling systems. Thanks to an in-depth study of the case, we’ve been able to guarantee an efficient, compact and totally customized solution for the customer’s needs. More in detail, the solution designed for Baglietto includes three different thermal energy management systems:

• Electric container
  Energy dissipation in sea water with TCOIL immersed exchanger. Electric preheating
• Hydrogen container
  Cooling and temperature regulation of the FUEL CELL
• Container storage
  Hydrogen storage in metal hydrides

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L'articolo Hydrogen and thermal management for the Green Energy Industry proviene da Tempco Blog.

These heat exchangers are made of two metal sheets welded by spot welding (from which also comes the name Dimple jacket exchangers), and inflated using controlled pressure in order to create an internal chamber for the passage of the fluid that has to be cooled of heated, therefore absorbing of dissipating energy.

The TCOIL exchangers are the solution we use in all of the energy recovery applications, immersed in a tank or basin to absorb or dissipate thermal energy. We spoke recently about geothermal energy: in fact, these are the exchangers we employ for tank immersion, or also in natural basins such as lakes or even for direct immersion in sea water, as heat exchangers directly immersed in a cooler or warmer fluid.

In fact, the TCOIL exchanger shown on the video is an electropolished one, a kind of finishing treatment very much employed in the pharma sector, as well as in the chemical industry and wherever an extremely polished surface is needed in order to reduce the adhesion of scaling or, in the case of immersion in sea water, of biological organisms such as algae or mussels.

Stay updated on the latest applications of thermal energy management by subscribing our monthly Tempco Newsletter – Solid Temperature.

L'articolo TCOIL plate heat exchangers in renewables applications proviene da Tempco Blog.