These regenerative heat exchangers can achieve considerably higher thermal efficiencies than a shell and tube or plate style.
Ceramic regenerative heat exchanger.
The basic unit of the regenerative heat exchanger integrated in the state of the art self regenerative burner is a cylindrical cartridge filled with a pile of ceramic honeycomb structures.
The two major types of primary heat recovery are recuperative and regenerative heat exchanger systems.
Whereas in recuperators where heat is transferred directly and immediately through a partition wall of some kind from a hot to a cold fluid both of which flow simultaneously through the exchanger the operation of the regenerative heat exchanger involves the temporary storage of the heat transferred in a packing which possesses the necessary thermal capacity.
Efficiencies can be as high as 97 which can cut natural gas usage by 90.
In these heat exchangers a stream of cold process gas passes through a series of tubes and is heated by another stream of gas which passes over the tubes on the shell side.
The combustion air and the exhaust gas alternatively stream through this cartridge mainly in the axial direction.
A regenerative heat exchanger or more commonly a regenerator is a type of heat exchanger where heat from the hot fluid is intermittently stored in a thermal storage medium before it is transferred to the cold fluid.
A 2 tank rto is made up of two.
To accomplish this the hot fluid is brought into contact with the heat storage medium then the fluid is displaced with the cold fluid which absorbs the heat.