What is a Chiller?

The common optics of a chiller is recognized as an air conditioner. In cooling technology, however, there are three basic types of industrial chillers. These include: Evaporative condensed, Water and Air.

Generally, industrial chillers are used to generate chilled or cold water or other liquids through a specified process system to produce cooling in factory machinery, laboratories and other parts and mechanisms.

For example in a degreasing process where solvents contain viscous materials that break down under high temperature, a freeboard chiller is used to cool materials to maintain product integrity and reduce loss of solvent.

Industrial Chillers

Depending on the type of industrial process, a chiller provides refrigerated air and removes heat through an absorption refrigeration cycle or though vapor compression. These are usually large machines that are stationary and connected to process equipment. However, today’s chillers are also customized for portability.

In laboratories, chillers maintain cooled temperatures so lab testing materials and their properties are not compromised.

Very often, machinery requires a chiller to prevent equipment parts and components from overheating. For instance, in power plants that generate heat from steam or water, metal parts overheat during extended operations and a chiller is necessary.

Custom Chiller Design

Building owners often require custom chiller designs. This may be due to building size, internal location problems or process loadings. For these issues, custom portable chillers are designed to customer specifications.

In certain instances, the industrial process may require a split system. This usually occurs in food processing where processing is divided between food products that require lowest possible cold temperatures and food products that require only minimal refrigeration to maintain purity. Processed chemicals also require custom chillers because chemicals can become volatile in heated air.

Other industries that require custom chillers include steel fabrication, welding, plastics and electrical discharge machining (EDM).

How Custom Chillers Work

Image Credit: North Slope Chillers

Custom chillers are specially designed to meet cooling specifications based on cooling time, temperatures and systematic operational functions.

Custom chillers work by customizing chiller controls such as providing leveraged temperature data, remote control systems, integrated manufacturing circuitry and alternative chiller fluids. Custom chillers provide regulated temperatures such freeze, deep freeze and frost temperature levels.

Which Custom Chiller is Best?

When all of the peripheral issues are considered, chillers are a business investment as well as essential facility equipment. A new business that requires a custom chiller unit should consider how the system or unit will be used.

Large grocery stores, for example, tend to choose custom chillers in split systems to provide frost temperatures for foods and beverages that need lower temperatures in display cases.

These businesses need a deep freeze custom chiller for foods and beverages that arrive frozen and must be stored before they are sold. Inevitably, large grocery stores prefer custom portable chillers that can be relocated as needed.

Laboratories also prefer portable chillers that can be relocated when space is limited or when a new, larger laboratory location is necessary.