Ammonia heat pump

[Segei]

I heard about NH3 heat pump to heat the water up to 140F. Anybody has experience with this application?

[US Iceman]

Sabroe has been doing this for years. IIRC they have some literature on their website (or used to).

[Segei]

Certainly, it isn't new idea. I'd like to hear from somebody who worked with these heat pumps. Did they have good experience or bad?

[Jacek]

I heard about NH3 heat pump to heat the water up to 140F. Anybody has experience with this application?

Sabroe have their new HeatPAC. You can produce hot water up to 160 deg. F. I provide a link:

http://www.sabroe.com/products/standard-package-solutions/heatpac.html

This package unit uses HPO and HPC high-pressure recip compressors (also used for CO2 applications).

http://www.sabroe.com/products/reciprocating-compressors/hpo-hpc.html

I know that in Poland run such installations very well.

Regards,

Jacek

[wehberb]

Vilter has new single screw heat pumps they are introducing to the market. I would check them out.

[US Iceman]

Vilter has new single screw heat pumps they are introducing to the market. I would check them out.

Have they sold any yet and accumulated any operating time?

[IceMasterNH3]

We had investigated Vilter's new high pressure screws for a customer looking at a potential heat pump application. That was in the Spring, and at that time, they had no installations. Frick is also getting into heat pumps with their new SmartPAC skid, but as of November also had none installed.

[Inniswhe]

I have a sabroe HPO being installed in an ice rink installation for heat recovery . It will be operational in about 6months.

I know of two other HPO installations in Canada. The longest install has been operating for about 5years in a food plant but I just heard that info second hand.

I toured the other installation in Quebec with the HPO unit on similar heat recovery duty. It seemed to be working fine but was only in service a few months. One issue that we discovered when investigating these machines is the oil return system needs attention. If the oil is not properly captured and reused ( per manufacturers approved method)it becomes a costly operating expense due to the oil specified.

[Frickman]

Hello Segei,
just to clarify are you asking about a heat reclaim system? Which inturn you install a heat exchanger in the discharge line to preheat water, or an actuall heat pump package? Companys have been putting heat reclaim systems in for about 12 years now which are pretty effective if you can keep your head pressure up and not effect your defrost cycles. Heat pump packages are new so to speek, Frick has designed one and it does work though. Icemaster is right there is not one out in the field yet.

[US Iceman]

Heat pumps are just another realm of industrial refrigeration. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't be using these where appropriate. If you use ammonia you need some high pressure components.

However, if you use a different low-pressure refrigerant you should be able to crank up the heat very nicely.

[mad fridgie]

Not sure what can be said here but I manufacture high temp heat pumps,
85C, eCOP of up to 8. At present primary use is for dairy farms, connects to nominal 6-20Hp medium temp (off the shelf product) (not NH3),

[US Iceman]

85C, eCOP of up to 8. At present primary use is for dairy farms, connects to nominal 6-20Hp medium temp (off the shelf product) (not NH3),

I have done something similar to this also for a client. Did you have any problems with relief valve seats leaking after a few months?

[mad fridgie]

I have done something similar to this also for a client. Did you have any problems with relief valve seats leaking after a few months?
Had no field problems, however during RD stage, pushed the equipment somewhat harder than you should, internal pressure relief blew (reset after off period) caused both by straight pressure differential and hydrolic pulsation. (Had been to copeland seminar, they pushed the virtue of scroll liquid pumping, (from stop to start) so I decided to to give the compressor a liquid nudge when running, does not like it.) Added a Acc, just to be on the safe side.

[US Iceman]

I heard about some issues with the Teflon creeping out of the seat and ended up using a metal seated relief valve. May have been a fluke or the contractor may have done one thing and told me something else. Not that that would happen mind you.;)

Trane went through a similar experience on their scroll compressors also. They re-invented their piping manual for scroll compressors. Funny thing, if you followed their directions the compressors scrambled.

[desA]

Trane went through a similar experience on their scroll compressors also. They re-invented their piping manual for scroll compressors. Funny thing, if you followed their directions the compressors scrambled.

Hi US Iceman,

Can you perhaps be a little more specific on the problems Trane encountered?

Many thanks...

[Segei]

Hello Segei,
just to clarify are you asking about a heat reclaim system? Which inturn you install a heat exchanger in the discharge line to preheat water, or an actuall heat pump package? Companys have been putting heat reclaim systems in for about 12 years now which are pretty effective if you can keep your head pressure up and not effect your defrost cycles. Heat pump packages are new so to speek, Frick has designed one and it does work though. Icemaster is right there is not one out in the field yet.
I mentioned about heat pump. Heat reclaim system use only superheat or 10-15% of total heat available. This is the reason that they have a long payback. Keeping head pressure up is wasting of energy. Hot gas defrosting can be done at 100 psig head pressure or lower.

[US Iceman]

Hi US Iceman,

Can you perhaps be a little more specific on the problems Trane encountered?

Many thanks...

:off topic: Sorry, did not mean to take this thread off-track. They had some oil return issues from what I remember. The company I worked for at the time had a lot of issues with this. Trane said to follow their piping manual and when we did problems resulted. When we pipe it the way we should have (eerily similar to the old Trane manual), no problems.

There were several big and loud discussions that took place at the time.;)

[erdincontas]

Do you have an example design for ammonia heat pump, and what is difference between frick and sabroe heat pump application.

[Bart Nabbe]

Hi erdincontas,

Just go to Sabroe.com and there you can find your answers on the heatpac's

We have several running already in housingprojects and hospitals.

As for Sabroe or Frick that depends on where you live in the world.
For Europe the most comes out of the factory (Sabroe) in Denmark. For USA it is from Frick. They use the same block and technology. (Both Johnson Controls)

Greets.

[johnny120000]

Hello, my company has delivered a ammonia heat pump that delivers 92 deg.celsius and 14,3mega Watt.We are test running it right now.We use Vilter screws in two stages.Motors on low stages are 1250kW and high stage are 660 kW,3 of each.Its a big plant.

[Segei]

How is the test run? Any concerns?

[johnny120000]

How is the test run? Any concerns?

We had issues with o-rings,oil pumps,noise,vibrations.But not really big things.The oil from the oil separators is really warm so the biggest problem was oil pumps.We have been up to 199.4 deg Fahrenheit or 93 deg Celsius water off the pump.About 13,5 megaWatt.We extract heat from sea water.

[mycom-man]

Check out mayekawa for heat pumps, they use a version of their k series which can be used to produce outlet temperatures of 85 deg c with a cop of between 6 & 9. They also have literature available

[bezar]

I am currently working with my customer on add on HP system with Grasso recipracating compressors. IT is dairy project for heating of water up to 77C.

Grasso HP pistons could be used in such systems.

If it is ammonia, Grasso "add on" system is very interesting COPwise. Of course, if you have existing load available. I can give you more details if you desire.

[kiwi]

Ive had a Sab HPO26 running for about 8 years now @ 26bar compounding off a NH3 single stage system. Suction superheat is critical but other than that we get enough hot water to cut a mid size abattoir gas consumption for their boiler in half.

[kiwi]

FYI I believe Sabroe now recommend the HP system is cascade and not compound as our system is. Oil carry over is our only real issue and even then it is not a big one.