Frozen out of the local market, a new technology cuts the ice internationally

A joint venture with an overseas company was the circuit breaker to outstanding success for an Australian refrigeration technology that is now used in more than 140 projects worldwide.

Today, Heatric printed circuit heat exchangers have been installed around the world, saving operator companies millions of dollars in project costs. They are in the North Sea, Russia, the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Oman, Dubai, Pakistan, Algeria, Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, China and Japan. In Australia, printed circuit heat exchangers are now used on many projects, particularly offshore WA (including, recently, Bayu Undan). They are used by all major oil and gas companies and contractors.

The Heatric printed circuit heat exchangers are typically used for refrigeration. They are compact, efficient and can handle the corrosive environments, pressures and temperatures needed for the ammonia absorption cycle process. Originally developed for solar energy applications, the Heatric technology was not immediately successful. Energy pricing did not escalate sharply during the oil shocks of the 1980s and the knock on effect lowered demand for solar energy.

It seemed that the many years put into design of the heat exchangers as well as manufacture, which requires a complicated process of chemical milling and diffusion bonding, would go to waste.

Development of the exchangers took place in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Sydney in the early 1980s. Other areas of the university that were involved included the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics faculties which provided financial and other support and the Chemical Engineering faculty which contributed substantially to the design and development of chemical milling.

In 1985 the project team founded Heatric which operated under a joint arrangement with Wildridge and Sinclair, a pioneer of industrial refrigeration in Australia. Breaking into the industrial refrigeration market was extremely difficult, as little value was placed on Heatric’s main attributes of compactness and its resistance to extreme pressure and temperatures.

Nonetheless, during this time a wealth of design and manufacturing experience was gained.

It also became clear that Heatric needed to look further afield, both to international markets and to adapt the technology to chemical and hydrocarbon processing applications.

In spite of putting substantial effort into fund raising in Australia, Heatric did not secure the capital to fund these upgrades to the marketing and manufacturing.

The breakthrough for the business and technology came in 1990 when a new joint venture was formed with Meggitt plc in the UK, a mid-sized aerospace business. Managing Director Tony Johnston, Manufacturing Director Colin Watson and Production Manager Graham McBride moved the business and their families to Dorset. Here it quickly became evident that offshore gas platforms in the North Sea would be very receptive customers for a ‘local’ manufacturer of Heatric’s revolutionary product which cut the size and weight of their heat exchangers by up to 85 per cent.

From a standing start in this new market, Heatric grew by 30 per cent to 40 per cent annually during the 1990s, reaching about Aus$50 million annual turnover by the time Meggitt bought the whole business in 1998. During this time Heatric was profitable and strongly cash positive, easily funding its growth on the strength of its cash flow.

To date, there is no direct competitor to Heatric's technology. The only alternatives are the pre-existing conventional technologies. During the 1990s a prospective competitor, in a joint venture between Rolls Royce and Alfa Laval, emerged for a time but has since dissolved.

In the late 1990s, Heatric encountered the challenge of very low oil and gas pricing which caused massive delays and cancellations of new offshore projects on which it primarily depended. While this situation has improved, a substantial commitment has been made to develop new technologies and applications, often in collaboration with other parties. Examples include chemical reactors, both at an industrial scale and for local generation of hydrogen for transport, and recuperators for pebble bed nuclear reactors, which may also be used for the disposal of weapons grade material.

Dr Tony Johnston was awarded The Warren Centre Innovation Heroes medal for his role in the printed circuit heat exchanger innovation, bringing a good idea to technical and commercial success. For more information on the Innovation Heroes Award or to make a nomination, please contact Robert Mitchell on r.mitchell@eng.usyd.edu.au or on (02) 9351 4048.

These printed circuit heat exchangers were supplied to the Bayu Undan Project in the Australia East Timor joint development area.



The printed circuit heat exchanger in the foreground was supplied to the BP (Arco) Pagerungan project in Indonesia. It is 85 per cent lighter than the equivalent shell and tube exchangers pictured behind.



Printed circuit heat exchangers can contain exceptionally high pressures. This 8MW, 500 bar gas compression cooler is installed on Statoil’s Asgard project in the Norwegian North Sea.



Printed circuit heat exchangers are not susceptible to hazards commonly associated with traditional heat exchangers, making them particularly suitable for applications utilising hazardous fluids. This 42MW ethylene oxide stripper feed heater is installed onshore at BASF’s Geismar facility in the USA.

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