Heat Recovery Systems

Heat Recovery Systems

Heat recovery systems have a variety of heat exchangers they can utilize, which allows many different transfer options such as air to air, air to water, air to steam, air to fluid, fluid to fluid, power generation and energy audits. This wide assortment ensures that all industries such as chemical processing, automotive, agriculture, mining and pharmaceuticals as well as commercial and residential environments which frequently utilize heat recovery to save energy and increase efficiency. Heat recovery systems are becoming increasingly popular in air pollution control systems such as oxidizers which inherently use and produce a great deal of heat energy that is easily recuperated through the addition of such a system. As emission control systems are often required in manufacturing facilities, heat recovery is a useful tool in recuperating much of the cost of operating such devices.

One of the most important aspects of heat recovery systems is the ability to transfer heat from one fluid or gas to another without allowing the two to mix. In most arrangements, the heated substance is run across one side of a plate or tube while the cooler substance is run along the opposite side. Most often materials for heat recovery systems are good conductors such as ceramic and metal. The tube or plate transfers the heat from one substance to the other. The fresh air or liquid can then be used for other processes. Although heat recovery often serves as a pre-warming step, additional heating may be required. Most residential heat recovery systems utilize tube and shell ventilation to use warm stale air to pre-warm fresh air for heating or for appliances such as ovens and dryers. While industrial settings may use heat recovery ventilation, many use air to fluid systems as well depending on the manufacturing processes employed. Industrial systems may be either recuperative or regenerative depending upon the specific configuration. Recuperative models use heat from recently cleaned air to heat dirty incoming air and recover between 50% and 75% of process heat. Regenerative systems, however, recycle as much as 95% of heat energy from a given manufacturing process.