Warming up to cold energy Angelantoni

Angelantoni is a market leader in the design and manufacture of thermodynamic solar products, and is also leading the field in the development of futuristic, energy saving technologies. From ‘cold energy’ to high performance ions and thermodynamic power plants, the group is setting the stage for a revolution in the way industry approaches energy-saving and the future wellbeing of the planet. Philip Yorke reports.

warming up to colD EnErgy

Angelantoni is an Italian company that was founded in 1932 by 28 year-old Giuseppe Angelantoni as a refrigeration business. The company has seen consistent growth over the years and a new dynamic organisational structure was established in 2012. Today the streamlined Angelantoni Group is comprised of three distinct divisions: Angelantoni Test Technologies (ATT), Angelantoni Life Science (ALS) and Angelantoni Clean Tech (ACT). The company also has a wholly owned subsidiary by the name of Archimede Solar.

energy (ASe)

The Angelantoni Group is a truly global player with eight production plants located throughout Italy, Germany, France, India and China. The group is innovation-driven in the areas of testing, biomedical and clean technology sectors, as well as in advanced solar technologies.

Interestingly, it is the ATT division that stands out for its broad product portfolio of testing solutions, which are marketed through its three main brands: ACS for environmental test chambers, BIA for automotive and aerospace test benches and TIRA for electrodynamic vibration test systems, material testing equipment, balancing machines and mechanical engineering systems. Advancing fusion reactor technology

Cold comfort

One of Angelantoni’s most recent and exciting subsidiaries is TURBOALGOR, a company which was founded in Italy in 2105. This innovative start-up business owns a worldwide patent for a groundbreaking device known as ‘Cold Energy’ technology which drastically reduces the electricity consumption of refrigeration equipment, as well as that of industrial and commercial air-conditioning facilities.

At the Milano Congress Centre in September 2018, TURBOALGOR made a key presentation at a major trade event concerning the future of energy efficiency called, ‘It’s all energy efficiency’. The company was the main sponsor of the event and unveiled its ‘cold energy’ solution for the food industry and well as participating in the round table ‘Retail’ section. This was of particular importance to the Angelatoni Group, which has dedicated a great deal of its R&D activities to creating innovative solutions in this field, some of which are already patented with others currently under approval.

‘Cold energy’ is a disruptive technological innovation that marks a breaking point with the past and opens a new chapter in the refrigeration industry. The new technology brings comfort to everyone and in particular to the future of the planet. This energy-efficiency solution is unique in the world because it is based upon the preliminary compression of the refrigerant fluid through the induction of a turbocharger system that operates inside the traditional refrigeration cycle.

Always at the cutting edge of advanced fusion technology, the Angelantoni Group is playing its part in the development of SPIDER (Source for the Production of Ions of Deuterium Extracted from Radio frequency plasma), the most powerful negative ion beam source in the world. It will operate in the INTER Neutral Beam Test Facility, hosted by Consorzio RFX in Padua, Italy, of which the Angelantonio Group is a key collabora-

tor. Its joint contribution is essential towards the development of the powerful heating systems needed to reach approximately 150 million degrees Centigrade, allowing the fusion reaction to take place.

The futuristic SPIDER facility is the result of unique international collaboration between Italy and Consorzio RFX, Fusion for Energy (F4E) and the ITER India organisation, as well as ENEA, CNR, INFN and the University of Padua. The expertise that will be acquired through SPIDER will help the consortium to create the energy equivalent to a small sun here on earth. This will drastically reduce energy consumption and provide sustainable energy for thousands of years to come.

uK Space Industry chooses ACS

The UK Space Industry’s scientific research laboratory, RAL Space, has signed a contract with Angelantoni Test Technologies’ ASC division for more than €20 million, for the manufacture of a large Thermal Vacuum Chamber (TVC). RAL Space carries out critical space research and technology development that to date has involved more than 200 space missions. The initial contract represents the first steps in meeting the UK space industry’s needs for a set of co-located world-class facilities for the environmental testing of space payloads and satellites. This significant contract includes the delivery of a large space test chamber, vibration facility and the combined electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and antenna management system.

Angelantoni Test Technologies told Industry Europe that it is honoured to be the supplier of the large test chamber, which will be delivered in six large components and assembled on the National Satellite Test Facility (NSTF) in Harwell in the UK.

With an internal usable diameter of more than seven metres and a length of 12 metres, the chamber will be the largest of its kind in the UK and one of Europe’s giants. It has an operational temperature range of 95K to 400K, which can be set in ten specific areas (shrouds), thus providing all the conditions needed to test a variety of complex science mission projects, as well as providing opportunities to develop new commercial satellites for earth orbit.

Thermodynamic power for China

Recently Archimede Solar Energy (ASE), a division of the Angelantoni Group, announced that it had completed its first large thermodynamic power plant with parabolic trough collectors and molten salts for China. This major project was started in 2013 and is now fully operational with 32,000 tubes delivered, generating 55 MWe power and offering 15 hours of thermal storage, enabling it to produce electricity even when there is no sunshine.

The system operates by allowing the parabolic troughs to follow the sun to continuously collect and concentrate the sun’s radiation onto a receiver tube located in the tube’s focal plane. Inside the receiver tubes there is a fluid that is heated by the solar rays from 290°C to 550°C and this result is achieved using a balanced molten salts binary mixture.

ASE is the only company in the world that is able to produce Molten Salts Solar Receiver Tubes, but it can also offer receiver tubes for different technologies available on the CSP, such as oil and DSG (Direct Steam Generation). Currently ASE’s production capacity exceeds 200 MWe and this is likely to increase yet further in years to come. n