The marketplace

High thermal performance

Rotary Heat Exchangers Pty Ltd, a wholly owned Australian company, has been manufacturing an Australian-developed and designed rotary air to air high performance heat exchanger for 35 years. And according to managing director Bill Ellul, its high thermal performance at very low airflow pressure drop has not been bettered by any other heat exchanger worldwide. The heat exchanger has been used extensively around Australia, and in Victoria particularly, for waste heat recovery in air conditioning to reduce fresh air loads in buildings and aquatic centers. Major projects including Melbourne’s Crown Casino and Federation Square have used the technology.

“We were involved at the initial design stage of Federation Square when we were approached directly by the engineering consultants for the project, who were looking for the most thermal efficient, low air flow pressure drop, air to air heat exchanger to meet their low energy usage air conditioning requirements,” Bill Ellul says. “Their extensive search was world wide and found that the heat exchanger that most suited the project was our unique Australian Mylar heat wheel, designed and manufactured here in Melbourne.”

“The Mylar heat wheel achieved (the consultants’) aim of high thermal performance with minimum air flow pressure drop,” Ellul says. “Worldwide, there is no other heat exchanger that can match this performance.”

Rotary Heat Exchangers has recently developed a low energy usage fresh airwaste heat recovery compact unit, utilising a heat wheel and two fans. The company installed a 2000 l/s unit at the Eltham College 25m pool hall building in Research, Victoria. This was externally mounted as a stand-alone system with its own ducting at one corner of the building and did not need to be integrated with the existing heating system. It has a measured dehumidification capacity of 29 lt/hr of water removal from the pool hall atmosphere without adversely affecting the heat load on the existing boiler air heating system. The building, which, prior to the installation, was adversely affected by high internal humidity and internal wall condensation, now experiences comfortable drier conditions with little to no wall condensation.

A high temperature heat wheel for industrial use up to 300º C has been developed in conjunction with Ecopower Pty Ltd and a Federal Government Start R & D grant. Further information can be found on the web site at www.ecopower.com.au. Enquiries, tel: 03 9729 3559.