Chillers in air conditioning

Chillers are the single largest energy-using component in most buildings. The purpose of a chiller is to remove heat from a liquid via a vapor-compression or absorption refrigeration cycle. To keep energy cost down and system performance up while increasing the lifecycle of the components, you want a properly designed and maintained system.

Absorption refrigeration cycle

An absorption chiller uses a heat source to generate the energy needed to drive the refrigeration cycle. SWEP brazed plate heat exchangers enable tight temperature approaches on the low- and/or high-temperature stream thereby increasing system performance.

Absorption heat pumps provide an alternative way to generate heat

Absorption systems are currently used mainly in large absorption chillers. However, smaller systems focusing on heating premises, known as absorption heat pumps or gas-fired heat pumps, are growing in popularity. When electricity supplies are limited or heat is abundant, absorption heat pumps provide an alternative way to generate heat. They can be driven by any heat source, including solar energy and geothermal hot water, among others. Absorption heat pumps have higher energy efficiency than gas boilers, and can make good use of low-grade ambient heat. They can be made considerably more efficient by using brazed plate heat exchangers as intermediate single-phase heat exchangers. Our brazed plate heat exchangers provide highly efficient heat transfer, which reduces the heat input needed to achieve a particular effect.

Vapor-compression cycle

The evaporator and the condenser are essential parts in a vapor-compression cycle. SWEP offers highly efficient evaporators and condenser with dedicated ranges for various refrigerants such as R410A, R32, R454b, R290, R134a, R1234ze(E) and R515b. These ranges have been thoroughly tested and verified in our in-house laboratory.

In addition to evaporators and condensers, we offer a wide range of other heat exchanger solutions for vapor-compression chillers:

  • Economizers
  • Heat recovery (de-superheaters)
  • Internal heat exchangers
  • Oil coolers
  • Sub-coolers