Heat Exchangers are a critical tool for wastewater treatment plants.  These plants are a tremendous consumer of energy, which is why they are looking to installing heat exchangers with the newest technology to improve operating efficiencies.

Heat Exchangers Overview

A heat exchanger is a piece of equipment that transfers heat between two or more fluids. 

An industrial heat exchanger uses a thermal energy exchange process between two or more mediums at different temperatures.  They apply them within a variety of industries such as oil and gas, power plant generation, chemical processing, transportation, alternative fuels, and heat recovery.

There are several types of heat exchangers which is based upon particle size and viscosity.  It also depends on the application that it is being used to accomplish, whether it is liquid to liquid, air-to-liquid, liquid-to-air, and air-to-air cooling.

Sludge Heat Exchanger

The key is the sludge heat exchanger is more thermally efficient than a shell-and-tube exchanger.  The reason is that the design has non-clogging mixing elements for both tubeside and shellside process.  The non-clogging elements are the hi-pass, which are placed on opposite sides of the wall to allow the transfer of sludge and debris without building up.  The jacketed heat exchanger transfers heat from one medium to another by using hot water or hot sludge.

Klean Wall Sludge Heat Exchanger

Komax designed their sludge heat exchanger to do multiple processes such as mixing and heating municipal sludge, FOG (fat, oil, and grease), and manure for aerobic/anaerobic digestion purposes.  The Klean Wall design offers many much-needed benefits for the wastewater municipalities.  It is best utilized for wastewater, sludge to water, or sludge to sludge.

• Allows for control of the temperature during the digestion process.
• Prevents shutdowns due to blockages.
• 4x to 6x more efficient than spiral heat exchangers without clogging.
• 25% more efficient than spiral heat exchangers without clogging.
• Heat sludge flow rates from 100gpm to 10,000 gpm.
• 60% more cost-effective than spiral or shell-and-tube heat exchangers.

The Komax design has helped improve heat transfer in municipal wastewater applications, specifically with FOG (fat, oil, and grease) and municipal sludge.  It enhances biogas production and in the production of Class A biosolids.

Solution to Clogging and Fouling

Komax is setting the standards within the heat exchanger industry, by creating solutions not only for plant efficiency but also to preserving energy and the environment.  They have installed these exchangers in many plants worldwide and have a proven track record.  They can customize the solutions to fit any plant’s needs or applications.  The engineers can customize materials, sizes, and end connections.