The Background

Rhotech’s solar water heater design relies on a heat exchanger to transfer heat from its low pressure hot water tank, through the walls of the heat exchanger, into the high pressure mains water line. Rhotech’s design is unique because of it is fabricated entirely from polymers. Most heat exchangers employ expensive materials such as copper to efficiently transfer heat, but since the cost of copper has risen three-fold since 2004, copper is no longer an affordable option. By using thin-wall and small diameter tubing, an all-polymer design can be effective while still being cost-effective.

Aside from heating your tap water, Rhotech’s heat exchanger could be used in many other applications such as heat rejection (fluid to air), heat recovery, heating or cooling corrosive fluids, or electrically insulated heat exchange uses.

The Design

• all-polymer heat exchanger
• terminates with ordinary 3/4″ NPT pipe
• 12′ length of sixty 4.7mm independent polymer tubes: surface area of 3.3 square meters
• easily customized to other lengths for different use-cases

Specifications

• Pressure range: 0-100 PSI
• Temperature range: 32-176 °F