Plate heat exchanger

At the beginning of the 1880s, there was growing public awareness that disease, such as tuberculosis, were spread by ‘raw’ or untreated milk. This initiated the early experiments with milk pasteurization.

The first patent of plate heat exchanger was granted to a German by the name of Albrecht Dracke in 1878. The subsequent years of the late 1800s and early 1900s saw considerable inventive and developmental activity that resulted in several other patents covering different forms of plate heat exchangers.

However, they were not commercially exploited until 1920s. In 1910 Dr Richard Seligman founded APV as the Aluminum Plant & Vessel Company Limited, a specialist fabricating firm. The company supplying welded vessels to the brewery and vegetable oil trades.

The plate heat exchanger (PHE) was invented by Dr Richard Seligman and he introduced the first commercially gasketed plate heat exchanger design in 1923. A plate heat exchanger essentially consists of a number of corrugated metal pales provided with gaskets and corner ports to achieve the desired flow arrangement.

Each fluid passes through alternate channels. Initially, a number of cast gunmetal plates were enclosed within a frame in a manner quite similar to a filter press. The early 1930s, however, saw the introduction of plates pressed in thin gauge stainless steel.
Plate heat exchanger