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.
Ceramic regenerative heat exchanger.
Recuperative systems typically employ shell and tube type heat exchangers.
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.
A recuperator is a special purpose counter flow energy recovery heat exchanger positioned within the supply and exhaust air streams of an air handling system or in the exhaust gases of an industrial process in order to recover the waste heat generally they are used to extract heat from the exhaust and use it to preheat air entering the combustion system.
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.
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.
Efficiencies can be as high as 97 which can cut natural gas usage by 90.
This heat exchanger is comprised of ceramic material which can come in the form of saddles or honeycomb blocks.
The combustion air and the exhaust gas alternatively stream through this cartridge mainly in the axial direction.