Rugged plastic heat exchanger for corrosive air

Recovering energy from warm air can now be successfully done in corrosive and hostile atmospheres and other aggressive environment.  Valuable energy can also be recovered directly from corrosive air and gas.

Traditionally it is not possible to recover energy from corrosive air in an economically meaningful way since the air handling equipment simply corrodes away before payback time is reached.  However with the GUPEX® industrial rugged air to air (gas gas) plastic plate heat exchanger it is now both possible and very cost effective with a n ever improving payback time as energy prices rise.  Where conventional air to air heat exchangers (for instance  aluminium heat exchangers) break down after a short time the plastic polyester GUPEX® heat exchanger just carry on recovering heat year after year, long after the whole investment has been recovered.

GUPEX® rugged air–air plate heat exchanger in plastic material was selected when a company within the galvanizing industry was required to recover heat energy from the corrosive air in their industrial process.

The first air heat exchanger unit for 30000 m3⁄h (18000 cfm) of processing capacity was installed in 2001 and is supplying the factory with fresh pre–heated and filtered air.  Extraction is from the factory is done through the ceiling above zinc and degreasing pots.

When the same customer expanded its operation with heat recovery from another 30000 m3⁄h (18000 cfm) of general ventilation air Gupex AS was again chosen to supply the heat exchanger.  However this time the rugged GRP air–air plate type was not selected but instead an ordinary aluminium plate type was used, but placed inside a GUPEX platic sandwich  casing. The reason for this hybrid solution was that although the extracted air was not corrosive, the heat exchanger unit itself was positioned in a corrosive environment.  The solid corrosion proof GUPEX® casing provided excellent protection against this environment.

It is standard practice for Gupex AS to provide optimal purpose–designed air handling heat recovery solutions like in this case.