Follow Some Golden Tips to Choose the Right Lab Water Chiller

Most of the chemical reactions are need to be carried out in cold temperature and therefore lab water chiller plays an important role in the research laboratories, pharmaceutical industries, educational institutes etc. Chillers help in removing heat for a wide variety of processes. It is necessary to make a right choice as a proper and right chiller increases the production speed and accuracy, protects valuable process equipment, and reduces water consumption and related costs. On the other hand, choosing a wrong device or the chiller with the wrong size would not be able to meet the cooling requirement and may hinder with the whole process.

 An ideal chiller is the one that has an adequate cooling capacity and that deliver the cooling fluid at the proper pressure and flow rate. Here are a few characteristics that needed to be considered while choosing a lab water chiller.

Heat load: While purchasing the chiller for your laboratory it is essential to determine the heat load of your application to make sure that the chosen chillers meet the need of the intended application.  Heat load is the amount of heat that is needed to be removed. It is expressed in BTUs/hour or watts and can be calculated using the following formula:

Heat load= Flow rate x Fluid density x Fluid specific heat x Constant x ΔT0

One should add 20% to 50% value to the calculated heat load value to provide safety measure in case the chiller is to be operated at an ambient temperature above 20⁰C, at high altitude or if the device has variable heat output.

Desired Coolant Temperature: After knowing the heat load, the next important step is the determination of the coolant temperature and the flow rate that the chiller provides to the process. This is the temperature at the inlet of your process and is tell the temperature up to which the heat is to be cool down when it travels from the chiller to the process. The longer the distance more is the potential heat gain. The heat gain can be minimized by insulating the cooling line and positioning of the chiller as close as the process or equipment that is to be cooled.

Coolant flow and pressure: To know about the coolant flow and pressure, check the pump performance curves of the lab water chiller to ensure that the pump provides enough pressure and flow rate to meet the need of the application. A too high flow rate and pressure can damage the equipment being cooled and the too low is inefficient to remove the heat adequately.

Use the chiller performance curves: The chiller performance curve helps in selecting a chiller model on the basis of the chilled water supply temperature and the highest expected ambient air temperature.

Other factors need to be considered before final selection

There are some other factors as well that need to be considered before making a final selection like power characteristics, control options, footprints, color etc. Consider all the above factors while selecting a lab water chiller and choose a perfect chiller for performing your desired task.