Selecting a medical chiller is a decision that should be made with extreme care — a well-chosen model can positively impact your equipment’s uptime and your facility’s profitability and productivity.
If you want to buy your first chiller or replace a current unit, you should consider various factors when determining which system to purchase.
What to Know About Medical Chillers
Medical chillers play a critical role in ensuring that lifesaving equipment is working properly — they are paramount to patients’ well-being, and there is no room for error. Such machines are often used to keep patients’ bodies cool during medical procedures such as cardiac surgery. Hospitals, laboratories and other medical facilities also use these systems to remove heat from machinery such as:
- Lasers
- Linear accelerators
- MRI machines
- PET and CT scanners
- X-ray machines
These pieces of equipment all generate significant heat and require rapid cooling.
Unlike comfort chillers, industrial-grade medical and laboratory chillers are designed to meet the demands of a cyclical operating load that both ramps up and dissipates quickly. As a result, medical models can handle the immediate shock of the load surge while still maintaining precise temperatures — standard models don’t have this capacity. Comfort chillers are also prone to developing refrigeration issues during the winter, whereas their medical counterparts are built to provide cooling all year round.
When you purchase a chiller for vital applications such as an MRI cooling system, you want peace of mind that you have chosen the correct one for your operation. Medical chillers offer you the consistency and reliability needed to optimize the uptime and functioning of medical equipment.
Selecting the Right Medical Chiller
There are different types of lab and medical chillers, and selecting the correct chiller is paramount for the success and efficiency of your operation.
Factors to Consider
Before purchasing a new laboratory or medical chiller, consider the following:
- Cooling ability: Choose a chiller that can fulfill your cooling needs. Also referred to as tonnage, the total chiller capacity impacts how many pieces of equipment you can cool at once.
- Temperature: Ensure that your selected chiller can achieve the temperature range needed for your application.
- Size: Select a chiller with a footprint compatible with your facility’s space.
- Noise: Be aware of the noise levels of the different chillers, and consider how these would impact your working environment.
- Energy consumption: Opt for energy-efficient units, which reduce operating costs and environmental impact.
- Budget: Chillers differ in price — set a budget and take into account ongoing maintenance costs. For example, preventive MRI chiller maintenance is a nonnegotiable, as this can help avoid issues that lead to the entire system shutting down.
Types of Chillers
The most common type of medical chiller is a recirculating chiller, which uses air or water to dissipate heat via an intricate closed-loop system. Each type of chiller has both advantages and disadvantages:
- Water-cooled chillers: These are more efficient and operate more consistently than air-cooled chillers. They also last longer. While water-cooled models cost less on average, the cooling towers in these systems require constant maintenance, such as water treatment and filtration.
- Air-cooled chillers: Though these machines can be more expensive than water-based systems, they have much lower maintenance costs. Additionally, air-cooled systems are more compact since they don’t have a water tower or pump.
Both water- and air-cooled chillers are usually available in portable and central options. As the name indicates, you can move portable chillers around your facility. You would install a central chiller in one permanent location, such as the equipment room or outside the building — they are also much larger than their portable counterparts. Determining which one is the right choice depends on your needs:
- Portable chillers: Compared to central systems, portable models are noisier and take up more floor space as they are located right next to the workspace. They also have higher upfront costs. However, a benefit is that portable chillers perform more accurately. Additionally, they are more customizable, allowing you to achieve the ideal temperature necessary for the machine you need to cool.
- Central chillers: Though different brands and models will be priced and designed uniquely, central systems often cost slightly less. These chillers also don’t take up precious lab space as they are outside the workspace — their noise levels are also relatively low because of this. However, as they are designed to cool large spaces simultaneously, they are not customizable.
If you need to cool one specific piece of equipment or only have a few machines needing to be cooled, portable chillers are best as they don’t have a high cooling capacity. If you have many machines that require cooling or all your equipment needs to be cooled to the same temperature, a central chiller is ideal since they have a greater capacity.
Though this analysis can guide your decision, always consult an experienced chiller manufacturer before purchasing.
Benefits of a Medical Chiller
When chosen correctly, an industrial-grade chiller can handle the rigorous demands of your laboratory or facility. The benefits of medical chillers include:
- Improved productivity: Precisely controlling and maintaining temperatures is crucial in many medical applications. Stable temperatures can improve your facility’s performance. Plus, the accuracy afforded by medical chillers can help ensure trustworthy results and optimum equipment efficiency.
- Extended life span: By achieving ideal operating temperatures, chillers may increase your equipment’s longevity, decreasing costs due to a reduced need for repairs.
- Enhanced safety: Chillers can make your workspace much safer, as they can stop equipment from overheating.
Our Medical Chillers
Working with the right manufacturer or supplier is as important as choosing the correct chiller. With over four decades of experience manufacturing chillers for medical processes, Smart Family of Cooling Products is a trusted partner of major health care facilities. We pride ourselves on enabling our clients to keep their essential equipment at the right temperature.
Our chillers have the following medical applications:
- MRI chillers: Our air-cooled models respond rapidly to temperature fluctuations. With the addition of a Smart Advance 3 controller, you can measure your machine’s temperature and observe the chiller’s response time and cooling ability. With custom sizes ranging from one to 100 tons, we have an MRI chiller suited to your facility’s needs.
- CAT scan chillers: We design models engineered to provide quick and effective cooling for your CT or CAT machine that you can depend on, allowing you to help more patients and reduce your facility’s operating costs.
- PET scan chillers: We offer standard and customized chillers for your PET scanners that can work around the clock, enabling you to diagnose and treat more patients.
Regardless of which option you choose, our reliable chillers deliver consistent performance.
Choose the Right Medical Chiller With Smart Family of Cooling Products
Each medical facility or laboratory has its own requirements, and choosing a suitable, high-quality chiller is of the utmost importance. Whatever your needs, Smart Family of Cooling Products has the expertise to help you select the right chiller. We will then build a cooling system that is aligned with your specifications for thermal load, size, operation condition, system footprint and portability.
To learn more about our medical chillers, contact us today!
