Heat exchangers are a device that makes the transfer of heat between two fluids possible.  There are many industrial applications that this applies to for both cooling and heating purposes.  Some of the industries that are common to find heat exchangers like coal, mining, steel, pulp, and wastewater.

Examples of Types of Heat Exchangers

The type of fluid and its pressure determines which heat exchanger is the best for its use.  A plate exchanger is especially designed for heat transfer between low and medium pressure fluids.

Shell and tube exchangers are more suitable for high-pressure applications.  While for cooling, a circulating fluid air-cooled heat exchangers are preferred.

How Digestion Heater Exchangers Work

Anaerobic digestion is a common process in the production of biogas.  This process involves:

• Sludge or feedstock heating
• Digestate pasteurization
• Concentration and evaporation of digestate
• Thermal hydrolysis
• Energy recapture and exhaust gas cooling

One of its key applications is the sewage sludge treatment process.

Pressure Based Heat Exchangers

Plate heat exchanger processes thin plates connected with each other with spaces between the two to let the fluid flow between surface areas.  These are significantly compact and very efficient for transferring heat between low and medium pressure fluids.

For high-pressure applications, shell and tubes that consist of bundles of tubes inside a shell to transfer heat from within it and around it is an ideal instrument.

Air-cooled heat exchangers have fine tubes, and it cools liquid by forcing air to the exterior of the tubes in which the fluid circulates.

Heat Exchanger to a Higher Technology Level

The Komax Klean-Wall Heat Exchanger can be utilized for mixing and heating municipal sludge, FOG, and manure for aerobic and anaerobic digestion purposes.  It enhances the biogas production and also helps in the production of Class A biosolids.

The heat exchanger is more thermally efficient than a straight shell-and-tube heat exchanger due to the patented non-clogging mixing elements known as the Hi-Pass mixing elements.

Benefits of a Klean-Wall Heat Exchanger

A few of the benefits of the Komax Klean Wall Heat Exchanger

• Avoid clogging and can also pass half of the debris without being blocked.
• It helps increase the bacteriological activity and better anaerobic digestion due to its sludge and shearing mixing.
• It is also used to eliminate any wall buildups by the high level of turbulence at the walls. Sludge consistently scavenges the surface of the wall to remove fouling.  The material causing thickness along the wall doesn’t lower the efficiency over time in the case of the Klean-Wall heat exchanger.
• No cleaning is required. However, if you must clean it, the Hi-Pass design enables easy cleaning down the center-line for the hydro-rod.
• Due to the heat transfer improvements, the shell-and-tube heat exchangers can be 50% smaller than a standard heat exchanger for the same heating application.