Heat pumps – a blessing or a curse?
Ever since the controversial heating law was passed by the coalition government in 2023, heat pumps have been the talk of the town. Although most of the regulations have already been overturned by the new government, heat pumps remain one of the most environmentally friendly alternatives for heating. However, this is conditional on them being powered by electricity from renewable energy sources. This is also stated in an article on heat pumps by the German Umweltbundesamt. As things stand, heat pumps are an integral part of the plan to achieve the energy transition.
PAPUREX has also been relying entirely on heat pumps for heating since this year. The old oil heating system has already been dismantled. You can find out more about the commissioning in our news article on heat pumps. At the company headquarters in Mörlenbach, only electricity from renewable energies is used. This comes from a total of 244 solar panels installed on the roofs of the company buildings. In addition, since 2003, external electricity has been sourced exclusively in the form of green electricity. In this way, the heat pump unfolds its full potential in terms of environmental friendliness.
Antistatic tubing, specially developed for heat pumps
PAPUREX is now not only part of the switch to heat pumps through its own application, but also in the form of a component. A German manufacturer of heat pumps contacted the PAPUREX team with a request to design an antistatic heat pump tubing. Since our antistatic tubing A:S:S® has been tried and tested for years, it was possible to build on an existing product. However, the big challenge was to achieve the complex shape required by the manufacturer of the environmentally friendly heating systems. On the one hand, the special heat pump tubing should not only have antistatic properties, but also be very short. During extrusion, however, the tubing comes out of the production line in one piece and is wound into rings of 50 meters in length or even longer as standard.
The heat pump tubing must therefore be manufactured as so-called tubing sections. The tubing is cut to the appropriate length directly on the production line using a special cutting machine. However, in addition to the antistatic properties and the special length, a third factor had to be taken into account. In order to be able to install the heat pump tubing reliably, it needs to have a special shape. Since polyurethane normally has good resilience, i.e., it returns to its original shape after deformation, a special process had to be developed. The PAPUREX development team designed a new process for the heat pump tubing so that it reliably retains the desired shape. A development process true to the slogan Individual Tubing Solutions.
Where is the heat pump tubing used?
Heat pumps are complex systems that feature a wide range of sensors. One of these is responsible for evaluating the volume of air flowing through the system. This is exactly where the antistatic heat pump tubing comes into play. Its antistatic properties are particularly important here, as static charge can quickly cause sensitive sensors to malfunction or even be destroyed. This new development, therefore, helps to ensure that the sensor can perform its task in the heat pump reliably and over the long term.
Do you also have a special project? Then get in touch with our experts today. True to its slogan “Individual Tubing Solutions”, PAPUREX will find a solution for your application, too.