New Product for Gas Cooling and Condensate Separating

Utilising fully welded heat-transfer technology and Vahterus' separating components, the Vahterus PSHE Separtaing Gas Cooler combines heat transfer and gas separation functions in one compact solution.

Valtteri Haavisto, Technology & Development Director at Vahterus

Vahterus sales and R&D have been working to develop a new heat-exchanger solution for gas-cooling duties. Our new product, an addition to the existing Plate & Shell family, is called Vahterus PSHE Separating Gas Cooler.

Gas-cooling duties often include the partial condensing of water from the product gas. This is the case in hydrogen plants, where water needs to be removed, and eventually dry hydrogen is supplied. The Separating Gas Cooler is specially developed to cool the gas, partially condense it and finally separate the condensed liquid from the gas. It can be applied to many types of processes requiring these functions in one compact solution. Vahterus heat exchangers have been used for years in all kinds of gas heating and cooling processes, many of them also having partial phase-changing duties.

The first part of the Separating Gas Cooler is the heat-transfer area. The effective heat-transfer abilities of the Plate & Shell Heat Exchanger offer significantly better heat transfer and approach temperatures when compared to traditional tube-type heat exchangers. The wide range of optimisation of the plate size, the flow gap and the small amount of passes needed also allows Vahterus to offer good heat transfer, without compromising the pressure drop over the heat-transfer surface.

The second part of Separating Gas Cooler is designed to separate the condensed liquid from the cooled gas before it exits the unit. This is achieved with Vahterus’ separating components that have been used for over 10 years in many liquid-separation duties in various industries. This construction has also been tested widely in Vahterus’ labs.

The last section of the unit offers the possibility to maintain the condensate liquid level inside the Gas Separating Cooler rather than in a separate receiver.

The materials and design conditions used in the Vahterus Gas Separating Cooler are similar to those in the standard Plate & Shell Heat Exchangers. Like all Vahterus products, the Gas Separating Cooler also offers customer safety and a service-free future, since the fully welded plate construction does not have a gasket that would require service or create a possible leakage risk to the surrounding environment.