Vitalis, a Canadian OEM providing CO2 (R744)-based heat pump and chiller solutions for industrial and commercial applications, has joined the world’s leading R744 HVAC&R stakeholders as a bronze partner of the R744.com marketplace.
With its North American headquarters in Kelowna, British Columbia (Canada), the company’s Coolshift heat pump offers solutions for commercial, recreational, industrial and district energy applications. Its Coolshift chiller package is suitable for dairies, breweries and glycol cooling systems.
The company offers between 100 and 3,000kW (28.4 and 853TR) capacity heat pumps for heating and cooling applications. “A wide range of configurations are possible thanks to the flexibility of our core Coolshift technologies and control systems,” Vitalis says on its website. The OEM claims to be “process experts,” allowing for “advanced” customizations based on client-specific applications.
“All Coolshift heat pumps include a [supervisory control and data acquisition] SCADA system for easy integration with industrial control platforms as well as continual process optimization for efficiency,” the company notes. The wide range of applications includes geothermal, heat reclaim, thermal loops, blast freezing and freeze-drying.
According to the OEM, its chiller package ‒ using an R744 heat pump ‒ replaces the need for stand-alone chillers and boilers. “Reduce your energy and operating costs by recovering the heat from chilling for hot water or steam production,” Vitalis says. The standard package includes heat recovery, a SCADA system and compatibility with the company’s Freecovery carbon capture system.
Heat recovery can supply hot water at temperatures above 80°C (176°F). Other options include steam generation, air cooling and up to 10,000l (2,652gal) of water storage.
Capture CO2 for use
For appropriate chiller applications, Vitalis offers its Freecovery carbon capture integration solution. “You can recover CO2 from fermentation and store it,” the company says. “[The unit] brings affordable, high-performance carbon capture to smaller breweries and other operations.”
“With flexible installation and system integration options,” the system captures, cleans and stores CO2 from a natural CO2 generating process such as fermentation and makes it available an existing CO2 network, the company explains.
With a “small” footprint, the carbon capture system distills up to 50kg (110lbs) an hour (or 292,000kg/643,750lbs a year) of liquid CO2, which is then purified to 99.99% with low dissolved oxygen.
Besides installation with the company’s Coolshift chillers, the Freecovery system can also be used with an existing glycol chiller ‒ using a small amount of the chiller’s cooling capacity ‒ and integrated with the facility’s existing CO2 network. The system is hooked directly to the facility’s fermentation tanks with a bladder to improve process efficiency.
The operation of the Freecovery system includes:
- connecting to the CO2 source at an atmospheric pressure of up to 500psi (34.5bar), though between 0 and 15psi (1.0bar) is typical;
- cooling the CO2 stream via a heat exchanger, as needed;
- filtering the CO2;
- compressing the CO2, with the temperature maintained via an integrated R744 system;
- changing the compressed CO2 from vapor to liquid through cooling via a heat exchanger;
- as an option, the CO2 vapor steam, at 100psi (6.9bar) , can be used for canning or bottling; and
- pumping liquid CO2 into an R744 network or storage tank (at roughly 300psi/20.7bar) for later network use.
As a vertically integrated OEM of CO2-based technologies, Vitalis has customers on five continents. “Our 2-in-1 R744 heating and cooling solutions are safe, reliable, efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally responsible,” for a future-proof solution, the company says.
“A wide range of configurations are possible thanks to the flexibility of our core Coolshift technologies and control systems.”
Vitalis
