ECO Unit

ECO Unit

By means of the application of the Eco-Unit the usage of fossil fuels is redundant without increasing the electrical connection power of the building. As a result savings appear at investment, development and commitment costs for fossil fuels (as a rule natural gas or fuel oil).

Corresponding rooms in the building can be completely disclaimed.

Operating with the natural refrigerant propane (R 290) in the primary circuit (only within the unit) both ecological and economic requirements are met to the greatest extent.
Due to the usage of a natural refrigerant the system comes under the F-gas regulation. 
Advantages are the omitted requirements for leakage test as well as safety from further legal regulations as it is to expect for PFC’s in the medium-term (analogue – Scandinavia).

Secondarily we also place great emphasis on the best possible environmental protection.  Therefore, we use exclusively the product Temper as refrigerant for the normal temperature circuit. Temper mainly consists of potassium acetate, which is also used as a preservative in the food industry.

You can always contact us for more information about Temper. On the side of air conditioning and heating the transmission takes place only with water.

All system components – especially the surfaces of the heat exchanger (condenser and evaporator) – are designed to the greatest possible energy efficiency. The injection of a refrigerant takes place by means of an electronic expansion valve, the application of a basic load compressor provides for stable pressure conditions in the cooling circuit.

In contrast to other systems the increase of condensation temperatures (in the heat recovery and heat pump operating mode) takes place smoothly depending on the ambient temperature. The same applies to the control of the evaporating temperature of the heat pump compressor.

Additional efficiency is reached by means of a unique interconnection of the condensers and evaporators. Energy-saving defrosting of the ambient air evaporator and slight temperature differences between ambient temperature and condensation and evaporating temperatures are the result of it.

The environmental compatibility of the Eco-Unit is rounded down by means of extremely low sound emissions of maximum 45/37 dB(A) (day/night). Therefore, assemblies adjacent to residential neighbourhoods are possible without any problems.

Due to the application of propane as a refrigerant, the Eco-Unit can be safely operated also at extremely high ambient temperatures (up to 50°C). Summer breakdowns of your refrigerating plant due to the high pressure failure are now a thing of the past. Additional operating safety is guaranteed by means of a redundancy circuit of the air conditioning compressor and by means of a remote monitoring module.

Also in case of a future conversion (omission of the refrigeration of products) no other or additional systems should be installed, because the heat pump compressor of the Eco-Unit performs heating and air conditioning of the building (back-up - heating capacity without heat recovery is always available). For this purpose the control and regulation technology must be merely adjusted. Even though an increased heating requirement for the building is due to the conversion, the heating capacity can be increased by means of a reconstruction of the system without installation of additional systems.

Refrigerant

Refrigerant

The natural refrigerants – ammoniac (NH3) and carbon dioxide (CO2) – as well as hydrocarbons as e.g. butane or propane are economically most important and have been successful in practical use for a long time. The systems that operate with water or oxygen are still in the process of development.

Propane is used so far almost only for systems with low filling capacities (<150g), as e.g. plug-in freezers and refrigerators.

For application of higher filling capacities there are partially groundless prejudices against usage of combustible refrigerants, although already for years it has been proved by means of scientific studies that such systems cause less risks as e.g. of conventional gas heating systems.
For this we especially refer to the published risk analysis of the Swiss Federal Office for Energy (BFE).

Propane (C3H8, GWP 3) as a natural refrigerant has been used so far for larger liquid chilling units. Heat pumps or refrigerating plants with propane are considered as trend-setting in the field of food production or in the chemical-pharmaceutical industry.
Propane with the ASHRAE designation R290 is a non-poisonous hydrocarbon that possesses neither the ozone depletion potential nor a direct green house effect. The thermodynamic characteristics of R290 are similar to the R22.
The low pressures in the condensing area enable an extension of upper limits of use at 55 up to 65 °C possible, so they are optimally suitable for the waste heat recovery from refrigerating processes.

Due to the fact that it is not combustible and that it has a toxicological risk potential only in high concentrations, CO2 is considered as the “white hope” among the natural refrigerants.

Nevertheless in this connection one should particularly talk about a temporary fashion, because especially the operation of the so-called transcritical CO2 systems is neither ecologically nor economically indefensible in the way these systems are now offered on the market. Our experiences by building transcritical systems are applied consequently for further development of the market-ready concepts.
In contrast to transcritical systems applications with CO2 as low-pressure deep-freeze cascade has already been representing the most reasonable usage for years. With almost 25 years of experience of your staff in the application of CO2 as a refrigerant, you could hardly find a more competent partner like us on the market.

Ammoniac (R 717) is indisputably the natural refrigerant with the largest market performance.
Ammoniac is particularly used here for large-scale systems, because the expenses for a evaporating condensation is here economically justifiable. We advise to apply R717 in combination with an exclusively air-cooled condensation only in exceptional cases, e.g. air-conditioning and heat pump applications considering very specific design parameters.

A very good solution for the dry condensation for middle plant sizes represents ammoniac - dimethyl aether (R 723).
Also in this area we are ranked among few companies with the respective wealth of experience.