The Benefits of Using an Air-Cooled Chiller in Industrial Cooling Applications

Air cooled chillers are proven to be some of the most effective chilling equipment in the realm of industrial services. Since machines tend to produce large heat outputs, air cooled chillers are the ally when it comes to cooling them down. From hotels to manufacturing sectors, many industries are benefited from the use of air-cooled chillers.

Provided you want to gain further knowledge about these devices in industrial contexts and what they bring to the table, you are at the right place. From what an air-cooled chiller is to its benefits, here you’ll find all that you need to know about them.

What Is an Air Cooled Chiller?

An HVAC system—it also goes by the name of Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning system—is an object employed to cool and dehumidify diverse settings. It is purposeful for removing heat from crowded places that may provide some form of heat energy, such as plugs, light, machines, the Sun, or even people as well as remove heat generated by production process.

With the aid of air handlers that are in charge of spreading the air around the facility, chillers are able to absorb this heat and transform the environment into a cooler place to be in.

HVAC devices are deemed to be platforms that enhance overall building performance, meaning that more industries are using them by the day due to their maintainability and reliability.

Some examples of industries that make use of chillers are gastronomy, healthcare, sporting events, and industrial contexts such as manufacturing plants, along with many other users.

How Does an Air-Cooled Chiller Work?

An air-cooled chiller takes processed water and absorbs its heat. It all starts at the evaporator, which receives a refrigerant that absorbs the heat from the water and transforms this substance into a high-temperature one.

Then, it’s the compressor’s function to pull vaporized refrigerant from the evaporator so as to pump it into the condenser in the form of a high-temperature, high-pressure gas.

This condenser transforms the refrigerant vapor into a high-pressure liquid with the cooperation of condenser tubes – fins. This liquid subsequently moves to the expansion device and evaporator, where both temperature and pressure are reduced.

Finally, the refrigerant flows back in to absorb more heat to allow the air cooled chiller to continue fulfilling its chilling activities.

What Are the Different Types of Water Chillers?

In terms of functionality, there are two principal types of water chiller: Air-cooled chillers and water-cooled chillers.

Both air-cooled chillers and water-cooled chillers work similarly since they perform their duty of cooling environments or production process with the employment of liquid mechanics and thermodynamics. Yet, they mostly differ in their respective inner workings.

For instance, air-cooled ones are akin to radiators found in liquid-cooled engines. A blower enforces air through refrigerated lines.

There is one caveat for these, though: Unless they are exclusively engineered to endure extremely high temperatures, it is believed that they work better with temperatures under 35° C.

Water-cooled chillers perform the same functions but require more steps to complete the cooling process. The two steps consist of moving refrigerant vapor into the condenser to later pump the now-warm condenser water into a cooling tower. This cooling tower is the component of the water-cooled chillers that manage heat before releasing it into the atmosphere. This extra component is the one that sets it apart from the air-cooled chillers.

On the same hand, this means that more parts are present, making the maintenance process more tedious and preponderant than in air-cooled counterparts. The reason is that the more parts that are within, the more opportunities for a technical malfunction to take place there are.

In terms of “Air-cooled chiller vs water-cooled chiller” scenarios, they both have different characteristics that set each other apart. Furthermore, the application is crucial since what can work in one environment may not be suitable for another.

Yet, air-cooled chillers are having the upper hand, since their maintenance costs as well as set-up costs are considerably minor to those of water-cooled chillers, making opportunities for business scalability possible with their use.

What Are the Different Applications for Air-Cooled Chillers?

While domestic air-cooled chillers prove to be fantastic aids at dissipating heat, industries are also protagonists of circumstances that demand the use of chillers. These are some examples:

Plastic Cooling

If you need to cool down hot plastic, you can introduce a water chiller in the manufacturing process to fasten mould cooling. A water chiller can lower plastic-making machinery temperatures. The result is a shorter cycle time as well as effective moulding process.

Rust-Protecting Processes

Technically known as anodizing, it is a process that protects metal components against rust. This results in high manufacturing temperatures, which water chillers can help dissipate. By simply moving heat through these devices, it makes anodizing processes far more efficient.

Lasers in Projection Industries

Projection industry lasers usually produce a lot of heat because of the considerable requirements of power supplies. Industrial chillers cool down the environments so that lasers can work better.

Drink Creation

Believe it or not, creating drinks involves a lot of heat production. From mixing to cooking and pasteurizing, industrial chillers are key actors in the success of the manufacturing process of drinks, as the industry relies on cool temperatures for optimal product quality for customers.

Rubber-Making

Rubber mills and rubber mixtures need to be cooled down. Industrial chillers are an integral part of the rubber-making business.

Printing

Printing cannot exist without the chilling industry! The friction—and heat—produced by plastic rollers in printing processes are superlative. Air-cooled chillers come to the rescue by cooling the paper as soon as it is out of the ink-drying machine.

Advantages of Industrial Air Cooled Chillers

Less Upfront Costs

Installation costs are much higher for water-cooled chillers than for air-cooled ones. When you install air-cooled chillers, all you have to care for is to have a hauling company deliver the equipment to your factory’s doorstep, in addition to average set-up costs.

For water-cooled chillers, installment costs are more extensive. When you install a water-cooled device, you must bring in the equipment, but you also need a cooling tower.

Cooling towers take up a lot of space and are incredibly heavy. This means that they are not possible to mount on rooftops, unless structural remodels take place to have them withstand all the additional weight.

If your factory is facing space constraints, water-cooled chillers are not an option. The air-cooled equipment can forgo bulky cooling towers and can be placed in settings where space is quite needed for other rather useful ventures.

Saved Space

All the extra space that your average water-cooled chiller requires can rather be utilized for more profitable purposes, such as storing products or prime materials to create goods.

You know that warehouse costs are on the rise, as space is a commodity that not many industries can afford. If you are in the need to squeeze as much storage space as possible, air cooled chillers are for you.

With air cooled chillers, you can forget about cooling towers, condenser water pumps, and all the other components that come with water chillers.

Do yourself a favor and opt for the space-optimizing virtues that the air cooled  chillers can provide.

Lower Maintenance Costs

You know how reducing overheads can sometimes make the difference between being prosperous and having to declare bankruptcy. The more that maintenance and upgrade costs can be alleviated, the better.

In fact, low-cost industries demand the absolute reduction of overheads for profit margin maintenance.

When you use water-cooled chillers, the maintenance costs can be significantly elevated than those you would expect from any air-cooled chiller. Extra auxiliary parts, cooling towers, and water pumps are all elements that must be maintained on the regular to avoid chiller malfunctions.

With air cooled chillers, all you have to care for is to periodically perform regular maintenance duties on the device itself without any other additional, adjacent maintenance hassles.

Environmentally Friendly

Air-cooled chillers do not employ superfluous water resources, whereas water-cooled chillers do.

Nowadays, companies do not only have to worry about maximizing profits and providing employees with competitive salaries. Also, they have to carry out responsible corporate practices that elevate corporate social responsibility to higher degrees.

An excellent form of doing so is by adopting environment-friendly practices such as water consumption reduction. Air cooled chillers enable you to save up a lot of water since they do not employ extra water for cooling purposes.

It can also happen that your company’s water costs are pricey. You can also cut down on water costs ostensibly by purchasing air cooled chillers instead of water-cooled ones.

As a bonus, they collaborate in reducing visual pollution, since the giant cooling towers that are present in water-cooled systems are absent in air-cooled products.

Air-Cooled Chillers Are the Future of the Industry

Fewer installation costs, minimal maintenance, absence of water wasting, space-saving, and high reliability are the features that set air cooled chillers apart from the crowd.

Air cooled chillers are what your company needs if you want to take a step up in business scalability to take your processes to the next level in the coolest of ways. To get yourself an air-cooled chiller, visit https://amcon.com.my/.