Vacuum Technology

Steam Jet Cooling Systems

Steam jet cooling systems are based on proven jet pump technology and often used to cool a liquid directly without any additional refrigerant by means of flashing into the vacuum.

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Our steam jet systems are reliable and require low maintenance.

Applications

The vacuum cooling plants represent a specialty among the jet pump systems. Vacuum cooling plants are used to cool a liquid directly without any additional refrigerant by means of flashing into the vacuum.

GEA designs and manufactures plants for the cooling of acids, lye, suspensions and liquid food.

Mode of operation

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Cooling is an expensive process. Ongoing increases in energy costs demand alternatives to traditional systems (mechanical compressors). More and more, flash cooling plants offer an environmentally friendly and economical solution.

GEA has more than fifty years of experience in the design and construction of flash cooling plants.

For each type of fluid the evaporation pressure requires a particular evaporation temperature. A liquid will start to boil if it is subjected to a pressure that is lower than its evaporation pressure. In flash cooling plants, only a small proportion of the medium to be cooled is evaporated (vapor flow [kg/s]). The thermal energy required for this process is taken  from the remaining medium: its temperature drops until the boiling temperature to the lower pressure has been reached.

The vapor flow conveys the thermal energy from the cooled medium into a condenser thereby transferring the thermal energy to another system (heat consumer, re-cooling system etc.).

Basically, there are three different types of steam jet cooling plants:

  • Compact design for small capacities
  • Column design for medium capacity and large capacities where there is little floor area
  • Bridge design for high capacities

Advantages

  • Simple and robust construction
  • Reliable and safe to use
  • Very little wear and tear owing to no moving parts
  • Minimal maintenance
  • Direct and indirect cooling is possible; with indirect cooling, the cooling medium
  • Is almost always water and therefore easy to handle
  • Very low chilled-medium hold-up volume
  • Frequent or fast change of load possible
  • Minimum electrical energy required
  • Waste heat and flash steam used as the motive media
  • Used very efficiently during seasonal and / or batch operation
  • Coefficient of performance value may be further improved by employing a motive steam saving control
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