Waching daily Nov 5 2018

My name is Jacob de Graaf. I work at Bort de Graaf Refrigeration Technology.

We are one of the most innovative refrigeration installers in the world.

And we are specialists in CO₂ refrigeration systems.

The most challenging thing working with CO₂ is the high pressure.

You need a heat exchanger for ammonia and CO₂.

This heat exchanger is the most crucial part of your entire system.

But it's also the part that will give you the most trouble if you have issues with it.

We tried all sorts of heat exchangers, but we had issues with leaks.

Alfa Laval came to us with their semi-welded heat exchanger.

And when they said, "we guarantee that there won't be any – never ever

whatever happens – there won't be any leaks from the CO₂ to the ammonia side."

Then we said "well, we just have to go for it."

Our customer in this specific case was a poultry processor. One thing they do, and this was

the main reason for building the installation, is freeze a large portion of the chicken.

And they asked us to build an installation that could freeze 110 tonnes

of chicken meat every 24 hours – from fresh to -18° Celsius.

We needed to extract every last percent of efficiency from the installation.

There wasn't any margin for error in this case. If you have a leak in such an installation

you will have to stop production, if you are very fast, for 2-3 days.

But it could even take a week or more.

Based on our experience, we chose to work with Alfa Laval heat exchangers

which we know do what they are designed to do.

We started the system, and we were like, "yeah, finally something that does what was promised."

We feel like working with Alfa Laval is a partnership.

Alfa Laval brings in their design suggestions in a way that you feel that they're cooperating.

We often complain that our suppliers don't really add value to our knowledge

that we know more about the product than they do. And that's not what you actually want.

It's nice to know how stuff works, but if you want to go to a higher level

you need a supplier that can help you achieve that higher level.

And I know that Alfa Laval they really know what they are doing. Alfa Laval wants their product to perform.

They want us to be able to get the maximum performance out of their products.

What we have learned from this case is that, after trying all sorts of heat exchangers

we finally found the heat exchanger for cascade systems that suits us.

That does what is promised, and on which we can build for the future.