The international trade fair for refrigeration, air conditioning, ventilation and heat pumps, Chillventa 2014, has again set new attendance records with over 30,000 visitors and 984 exhibitors.
Held in Germany from October 14-16, Chillventa is a truly international event with 56 per cent of visitors and 67 per cent of exhibitors from overseas.
The theme – Connecting Experts – was reflected in the speaker program which had 250 participants.
There were plenty of topical issues listed on the program which featured high calibre speakers such as Dr Laurent Abbas, the global R&D project leader for refrigerants development at Arkema.
Abbas joined the Arkema fluorochemicals team in North America in 2011 as a senior research scientist after working for Arkema France from 2007. In his presentation, he talked about lower GWP substitutes for R-404A and R-507.
“While R-407A is already commercially available to replace R-404A and R-507 in most of the refrigeration applications and thus reducing the GWP by almost 50 per cent, lower GWP alternatives are currently under development and experimental testings,” Abbas said.
“With a GWP value of around 1400, ARM-32b offers, in most of the situations, a lower GWP alternative to R-404A while remaining non-flammable and maintaining efficiency. For applications where discharge temperature and glide have to be kept to a minimum while still matching the cooling power and energy efficiency of R-404A / R-507, like transportation, ARM-35 has been designed as a pure drop-in of R-404A and R-507 and is a non-flammable refrigerant.”
More popular than the presentations is the product displays and new technology.
One company that made a big impression at Chillventa was the Güntner Group with its thermowave plate heat exchangers.
The company had a number of units on display in different sizes. There was a tandem unit with the size TL 650 for the area of de-superheating/condensing and TL 500 for heat recovery. The TL 650 is a two-stage two-in-one device.
The TL 500 is used as a separating unit between the de-superheating part and a water circuit. The two thermoLine plate heat exchangers are sufficiently connected by a simple bar. With both sizes, the height of the heat exchanger plates is identical, only the widths are different.
Thermowave uses its self-developed calculation program (thermoline calculator) to ensure optimised design in terms of pressure, hydraulics and thermodynamics.
Güntner's theme for this year's event was “Innovations for all Fluids” and other products on display included the new Güntner air cooler series (GACV) and the high performance condenser/dry cooler (GCHV/GFHV) range.
For ebm-papst, Chillventa provided an opportunity to showcase its new range of fans for refrigeration technology. Among the products on display was the new EC axial fan series with diameters of 400 to 910 mm. The series is built around two new EC motors.
A combination of improved motor cooling and the use of the latest materials have made it possible to increase power density even further.
The modular construction of the motor and electronics enables a power range of 250 W to 1.3 kW in single and three-phase configurations.ebm-papst has also developed an energy saving fan that is purpose-built for use in evaporators and boasts high reliability and long service life.
In addition to GreenTech EC technology, it features the HyBlade impeller, with its aerodynamically optimised blade geometry for high overall efficiency.
Another product development that is a first is the EC medium pressure axial fan, a fully assembled and installation-ready combination of housing, impeller, EC motor and control electronics.
The blades of the axial impeller can be adjusted when at standstill, a unique feature on the market when combined with the GreenTech EC motor.
See more highlights in our product special "From ammonia chillers to bionic fans".