Small and Flexible Engineering: Modular Thinking Outside the Box

Related Vendors

EPC Group

Glatt Ingenieurtechnik GmbH

Pörner Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH

ProMinent GmbH

Tackling Refrigeration Issues: How Cool is That?

The vision catches on: Another application where modular plants prove their worth is cooling. As refrigeration is responsible for 17 % of the global energy consumption, there is a high demand for efficiency. The go-to technology in most applications are of external compression-refrigeration cycles with partially fluorinated hydrocarbons (HFCs) and fluorocarbons (HFCs).

But these have a very high global warming potential (GWP). The search for energy-efficient and environmentally friendly solutions thus plays an important role. Natural refrigerants are increasingly used in conventional refrigeration and air conditioning but require special care due to their toxicity and flammability.

Wanted: Alternative Coolants

Enter the engineering experts: Together with Kälte-Klima-Sachsen, a company specialised in cooling and refrigeration, the ­Cryotec engineers developed a modular hexane-recooling with the propene-based natural refrigerant R1270. The challenge: Although hydrocarbons like propene offer a very good potential as a refrigerant and can easily be mixed with common cooling fluids, their flammability calls for a high safety level and hermetically sealed systems with explosion-protected electric installations.

Engineering Projects Around the World (Image Gallery)

Gallery with 16 images

A clear advantage for plant modules, which offer a safe construction that is hard to match for a stick-built infrastructure. Cryotec delivered a complete recooling system, which requires very little maintenance due to its compact design, its easy handling and the fully automated process control.

New Ways for Waste Gas

But modular engineering can do even more: It could also open a new perspective for CO₂. In fact, the infamous climate killer could become a valuable raw material, as a feedstock for chemicals or for use in food and beverages. All these processes, as different as they are, have one thing in common: They can only be sustainable, if CO₂ is recovered from industrial processes and recycled to be reduced in the atmosphere.

“The fact that Germany is about to miss its climate goals illustrates the potential of CO₂-utilisation,” says Corinne Ziege. “We have to find solutions which are both sustainable and economically viable.”

Engineering for Greener Refrigeration

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the demand for CO₂ technologies has increased considerably: “When we start working on a project, we first identify the task at hand,” Ziege says. “Where does the CO₂ come from? Which level of purity is needed? Once these questions are settled, our engineering know-how comes into play to connect the available building blocks.”

(ID:45358641)