Energy & Power

Power plants use heat exchangers to collect heat from hot waste gases to get power. Refrigerators use heat exchangers to dump the heat from inside the fridge to the room that it's sitting in. Vehicles use heat exchangers to dump waste heat to the atmosphere so they don't overheat.For instance, a car radiator is a type of heat exchanger. Coolant that takes heat from the engine flows through the radiator which has metal fins that open into the air. As the car drives along, air blowing through the front grille cools this coolant and the waste heat can flow into the passenger compartment, providing heat to the car.

Efficiencies of power plants can be increased with heat exchangers because the exhaust gases still have some useful energy in the form of heat. This heat is absorbed by heat exchangers in the smoke stack and brought somewhere where it can contribute usefully, such as to pre-heat the fuel going into the boiler, or to heat a nearby office.

Heat exchangers are used in technological processes in the oil refining, petrochemical, chemical, nuclear power, refrigeration, gas and other industries.

In solar energy installations the heat exchanger is used to transfer the heat captured through solar radiation to another working fluid. Solar thermal energy can be used both to supply thermal energy in a heating system and in solar thermal power plants.

Other examples of common heat exchangers are the car radiator and the heater for domestic heating.