Alfa Laval Heat Exchanger Pre-Cools Compressed Air

Yielden Filtration, a Malaysian company manufacturing air and liquid filtration solutions, has chosen a Gas-to-Liquid (GL) heat exchanger from Swedish manufacturer Alfa Laval to pre-cool its compressed air system.

Yielden chose the Alfa Laval brazed plate heat exchanger rather than a shell-and-tube solution, gaining a more compact and “dependable” system in the process, according to Alfa Laval. The new system has a lower total cost of ownership and improved sustainability, the company said on LinkedIn.

Users of compressed air systems have a number of technical requirements, one of the most crucial being a high level of moisture separation. Condensate can cause corrosion or freezing issues if not removed properly. This means dryers are required as a standard component when treating compressed air.

However, in very high ambient temperatures, like in the Malaysian climate, the compressed air can be discharged at temperatures up to 50°C (122°F), something than can cause problems for these dryers, and other downstream equipment like filters and auto drains. This is why Yielden needed a pre-cooler system, which can lower the temperature and remove some of the moisture before it enters the dryer.

Yielden’s new gas-to-liquid plate heat exchangers from Alfa Laval can remove condensate from the airstream and lower the temperature of the compressed air to 35°C (95°F), or even lower.

Compact design

The GLs have a compact design, with a “footprint that is approximately one fifth of that of a comparable shell-and-tube unit,” according to Alfa Laval’s website. For Yielden’s end customer, this means “huge savings in both floor space and lifetime costs,” Alfa Laval said.

The GL units have a built-in moisture separator and auto drain, meaning that an additional stand-alone water separator is most often not needed. They are constructed using stainless steel, rather than the usual carbon steel used in shell and tubes, giving them “much higher thermal efficiency with additional robustness,” according to Alfa Laval. It also enables “significantly greater operational sustainability and reliability over time,” the company said.

The GL series is manufactured with Alfa Laval’s copper-brazing technology and has a “very low” pressure drop in asymmetric application due to a patented “dimple” plate design. Alfa Laval’s standard GL models can handle gas temperatures up to 750°C (1,382°F), and for special applications temperatures up to 1,400°C (2,552°F) is possible, where normal copper brazed heat exchangers can often only handle temperatures up to 225°C (437°F).

More Alfa Laval news

In the beginning of February, Alfa Laval’s new BHE factory in Italy gained an ISO 55001 certification after an “intense” audit carried out by inspectors from German TUV and Italian Accredia. The ISO 55001 is an asset management system focusing on all company assets – tangible as well as intangible.

Alfa Laval has also recently joined Carrier’s Alliance Supplier Program, cementing a collaboration between the two companies that has been ongoing for many years. “We are pleased to welcome Alfa Laval as one of the newest Carrier Alliance suppliers with the execution of this global long-term agreement,” said Ed Dunn, Vice President for Supply Chain at Carrier. “Over the years, Alfa Laval has supported Carrier by providing best-in-class components that help improve reliability, reduce operating cost and increase uptime.”