April 1, 2002—Trane, the air-conditioning systems and services division of American Standard Companies Inc., recently introduced a new CenTraVac chiller that eliminates the use of oil. This patented chiller has a simpler design that achieves high efficiency, reduced environmental emissions, and a lower total cost of ownership for optimal performance over its lifetime.
Chillers are devices that produce chilled water to provide air conditioning for large buildings or cooling for process applications, such as those in the plastics, printing, laser cutting, and HVAC industries.
Trane incorporates this oil-free technology in its new S-Series EarthWise CenTraVac chiller, available in 2003. The simplicity of the S-Series’ design is one of several factors that sustain its efficiency, decreasing utility-generated greenhouse gas emissions and reducing operating costs. There is no oil to contaminate the refrigerant—a common and potentially significant cause of efficiency loss in traditional chiller designs. The unit is hermetically sealed so that its initial refrigerant charge is most likely its final charge, and a chiller running on a full refrigerant charge helps maintain peak efficiency, taking much less energy—and money—to operate.
To ensure a full charge and continuous optimal efficiency, all S-Series chillers come standard with an EarthWise purge—a device used to expel non-condensables. Purge run time is monitored and documented so leaks can be found and fixed before even minute amounts of refrigerant are lost.
For more information, contact Trane.
