Robur Gas-Fired Chillers and Heat Pumps - Background

Robur Gas-Fired Heat Pumps     Robur Gas-Fired Chillers

Robur SpA is an ISO9001 and ISO14001 certificated Italian manufacturer of solutions for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration that are able to significantly reduce the impact on the environment.

They produce a range of modular gas-fired air cooled chillers and heat pumps for commercial and industrial use. Being based on absorption cycle technology these systems are far more environmentally benign than their more conventional electrically driven equivalents.

There are more than 360,000 Robur chiller and heat pump systems installed worldwide.

Robur in the 21st Century
The concept of absorption cooling has been around since the late 18th century but has never reached the complete mainstream acceptance that its more conventional vapour compression brother has enjoyed. The origins of Robur’s highly efficient gas-fired chillers dates back to work carried out on domestic refrigerators for the Servel company in the USA by Albert Einstein.

Following the successful application of absorption technology to domestic refrigeration in the 1950s and 60s, when over 4 million units were sold, the first commercial gas-fired chiller was produced by the Arkansas & Louisiana Gas Company (Arkla) in 1968.

Between 1968 and 1991, over 300,000 of these air cooled chillers were sold under a range of brand names.

The modern era for gas-fired chillers began in earnest in 1991, when the highly respected Italian manufacturer Robur acquired the gas-fired chiller business of US manufacturer Electrolux.

After moving production to Europe, the process of product development and improvement began. From an efficiency and product range point of view, today’s gas-fired absorption chiller is now almost unrecognisable from its US produced predecessor.

The Robur ACF range of air-cooled gas-fired chillers is based around a 17.7kW cooling module and extends from 17.7kW to 88.6kW cooling capacity. The units are easy to install, being sited outdoors on a roof or in a car park and only required chilled water connections, a gas supply and a small single phase power supply.

However, the real technology leap, which has taken place over the past five years, has been the development of heat recovery and heat pump products. In applications where there is a heating demand as well as cooling – which is probably the majority of commercial building and process applications – gas-fired absorption heat pumps turn all efficiency, running cost and environmental arguments head over heels.

Typically, Robur gas-fired absorption heat pumps can produce hot water for heating at efficiencies of over 140%, which gives them one of the lowest carbon footprints of any commercial and industrial heating device available. The product range encompasses Air Source, Ground Source and Water Source models and is based around a 35kW heating module. These modules extend the heating capacity range from 35kW to 208kW.

The Robur range of gas-fired Heat Pumps were one of the finalists in the prestigious 2008 Sustainable Building Services Awards.