Refrigerant Pump Product Overview

Refrigerant pump is a type of equipment that transports liquid refrigerant, which is used as an auxiliary equipment in traditional refrigeration cycles (especially in cold storage refrigeration) and belongs to a certain type of chemical equipment.

In recent years, with the advancement of digital transformation, the data center industry has experienced explosive growth. The proposal of the dual carbon target has put forward higher energy-saving requirements for the construction and operation of data centers, and the core of energy conservation in data centers is the improvement of energy efficiency in refrigeration and air conditioning systems. Various energy-saving technologies, such as frequency conversion, high supply and return air temperature, and natural cooling, are constantly advancing. The combination and superposition of these technologies have resulted in greater energy-saving effects. The role of the "refrigerant pump" has far exceeded the traditional function of refrigerant transportation, and it has become the core device of various energy-saving technologies due to its ability to replace compressor operation and significantly save energy. Products such as "fluorine pump air conditioning" and "heat pipe air conditioning" with refrigerant pump applications as the core have been widely used. Refrigerant pumps have evolved from auxiliary components to key equipment, and have gradually grown into a brand new professional industry focused on product research, development, design, and production.

The fully enclosed refrigerant pump is based on the application scenarios and system requirements of data center refrigeration and air conditioning. It has gradually developed from meeting practical needs and customer customization. Compared with early traditional refrigerant pumps, it mainly has the following characteristics:
1. Fully enclosed. It is mainly used on the high-pressure side of refrigeration systems, which must withstand the highest condensation pressure during compressor operation during high temperature seasons and can operate outdoors at extreme low temperatures. Only a fully enclosed shell can meet the zero leakage requirement.
2. Low traffic. The liquid conveyed by it undergoes phase change vaporization and matches the gas displacement of the compressor in the same system, resulting in a smaller flow rate. The most commonly used fully enclosed refrigerant pump has a flow rate of below 1.1m3/h (cooling capacity of 60kW), and is subdivided into smaller models based on the commonly used cooling capacity. At the same time, the application of high flow refrigerant pumps is also growing, but due to the capacity limitations of a single refrigeration system, the maximum flow rate currently used is about 12m3/h (refrigeration capacity 500kW).
3. Transporting saturated liquids that are prone to phase change, with complex operating conditions and frequent switching of working modes. Due to the need for year-round operation, the temperature and pressure changes on the outdoor condensation side are significant, and the pipeline is shared with the compressor refrigeration system. In order to maximize the utilization of natural cold sources, it is generally necessary to switch the operating mode, resulting in frequent and complex changes in the inlet state of the pump.
4. Continuous operation without faults throughout the year.
5. Easy to variable capacity, variable flow control, and flow regulation.

The application and gradual maturity of fully enclosed refrigerant pumps have had a fundamental impact on the development of data center refrigeration systems, especially computer room air conditioning:
1. From the perspective of refrigeration system architecture, the air conditioning system in the computer room has been almost redefined: with mechanical refrigeration by compressors as the main mode of operation, transforming to natural cooling by fluorine pumps as the main mode, with mechanical refrigeration by compressors as the auxiliary mode. The importance of refrigerant pumps even exceeds that of compressors. (Fluorine pump: a refrigeration cycle system that uses refrigerant pumps to achieve natural cooling, commonly referred to as "fluorine pump natural cooling" in the industry)
2. From the perspective of reducing refrigeration energy consumption, the country and various regions have put forward increasingly strict requirements for energy efficiency (PUE) of data centers: newly built data centers have a PUE value of 1.25 or below, existing data centers need to undergo energy-saving transformation to meet the PUE value requirements, and so on. Objectively, the wider application of refrigerant pumps is an inevitable choice.
3. The development of liquid cooling technology in data centers has further promoted the application of refrigerant pumps.
4. In recent years, the significant development of new energy, electrochemical energy storage, and power electronics has highlighted the importance of their cooling systems. The traditional water-based cooling method is difficult to meet new needs, and new technologies using refrigerants as the medium have been applied and developed.