Refrigeration – Refrigeration producer – With refrigerant treater
Reexamination Certificate
2003-03-14
2004-08-24
Tapolcai, William E. (Department: 3744)
Refrigeration
Refrigeration producer
With refrigerant treater
C062S077000, C062S149000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06779359
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerant processing apparatus for collected equipment, which recovers a refrigerant from collected equipment using a refrigerant gas, such as a cooler for domestic use, an air conditioner, a refrigerator and an automobile cooler, without releasing the refrigerant into the air, and as required regenerates a recovered refrigerant and charges the regenerated refrigerant into the collected refrigerant, as well as to an oil separator which is connected to an existing refrigerant recovery system by piping and is used as a refrigerant processing apparatus for collected equipment.
2. Background Art
Refrigerant recovery and refrigerant charging have heretofore been carried out by different kinds of systems, respectively. Refrigerant charging systems have comparatively simple constructions which directly charge collected equipment with refrigerants recovered in their recovery bombs or refrigerants of new recovery bombs. On the other hand, improvements of refrigerant recovery systems have been targets of invention, and many kinds of refrigerant recovery systems have been invented and publicly known.
Many of these publicly known refrigerant recovery systems basically have a construction in which an oil-containing refrigerant of collected equipment is sucked by the suction of a compressor through an evaporating pipe having a suction regulating valve and is separated into a refrigerant and an oil, and a gaseous refrigerant is condensed into a liquid refrigerant by a cooling fan and a condenser to recover the liquid refrigerant into a recovery bomb through a condensation pipe, while the oil is recovered into an oil container. A refrigerant recovery system according to, for example, Japanese Patent Number 3,015,820 is publicly known as a representative invention based on the above-described construction (hereinafter referred to as the publicly known invention).
The refrigerant recovery system according to the publicly known invention will be described with reference to
FIG. 15. A
refrigerant and an oil are sucked from equipment from which to recovery the refrigerant, through an oil separator by a compressor, and the refrigerant is transferred under pressure to a condenser from an oil recovery container heated by a refrigerant of high temperature and high pressure which is ejected from the oil separator via the compressor. The oil from which the refrigerant has been separated by the heating of heating means is recovered in the oil recovery container, while the refrigerant from the outlet side of the condenser is stored into a container.
In a refrigerant recovery container in which the refrigerant is recovered, a bypass passage is provided between the outlet side of the compressor and the inlet side of the condenser, and a valve which opens and closes the bypass passage so that the refrigerant is returned to the condenser in part through the oil recovery container and in part through the bypass passage.
In particular, the publicly known invention saves power consumption by utilizing as the heating means for the oil recovery container the waste heat of the compressor instead of the heat of a refrigerant gas of high pressure and high temperature which is obtained on the outlet side of the compressor, and also provides mechanical connection between the compressor and the oil recovery container to transmit the vibration of the compressor to the oil recovery container, thereby releasing a gaseous refrigerant from the oil and liquefying the gaseous refrigerant to recover a liquid refrigerant.
However, the refrigerant recovery system constructed in the above-described manner according to the publicly known invention needs a complicated construction in which various devices for oil recovery are disposed in piping, and if collected equipment is to be charged with a refrigerant, a refrigerant charging system for transferring a refrigerant recovered in the refrigerant recovery container must be very uneconomically provided independently of the refrigerant recovery system.
In addition, since a refrigerant passage which passes from the condenser to the oil recovery container and back to the condenser goes to a high-pressure state within the oil recovery container, a liquid refrigerant necessarily remains in the oil recovery container at the time of the completion of recovery, with the result that insufficient recovery occurs, causing the problem that a refrigerant gas is released into the air when the kind of gas to be recovered is changed.
Furthermore, since the publicly known invention only aims to remove a liquid refrigerant from oil, a liquid refrigerant which contains a considerable amount of moisture is regenerated and recovered. If such a liquid refrigerant is directly charged into collected equipment, the cooling function and the mechanical durability of the collected equipment will be degraded. Accordingly, it is necessary to remove moisture from the liquid refrigerant as completely as possible before charging.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention provides an economical refrigerant processing apparatus for collected equipment, which efficiently recovers a refrigerant without releasing a refrigerant gas into the air and has a refrigerant regeneration and charging function. The invention also provides an oil separator which enables efficient recovery, regeneration and charging of a refrigerant of collected equipment by being connected to an existing refrigerant recovery system by piping.
To solve the above-described problems, the invention provides a refrigerant processing apparatus for collected equipment, for use in a refrigerant recovery system in which an oil-containing refrigerant to be recovered is sucked from collected equipment by a compressor and after an oil has been separated from the oil-containing refrigerant by an oil separator having a heater unit, a resultant refrigerant is regenerated as a liquid refrigerant by a condenser and is recovered into a recovery bomb. The refrigerant processing apparatus for collected equipment includes: the oil separator having a construction provided with a separating wall provided in a passage space defined in an upper portion inside a hermetically enclosed evaporating vaporization chamber, a heat exchanging double spiral pipe in which a double pipe made of a central pipe and an external pipe is formed spirally about a vertical central axis, the heat exchanging double spiral pipe being provided in a space below the separating wall, the oil-containing refrigerant being made to collide with the separating wall through the external pipe from below the heat exchanging double spiral pipe to separate the oil-containing refrigerant into a gaseous refrigerant obtained by volatilization or evaporation and an oil-containing liquid refrigerant, and a heating unit for vaporizing the oil-containing liquid refrigerant excluding the oil; an oil recovery channel in which a remaining oil is recovered by heating with the heating unit; a refrigerant regeneration and recovery channel in which a gaseous refrigerant obtained by separating the oil-containing refrigerant and heating the oil-containing liquid refrigerant excluding the oil, and a gaseous refrigerant remaining after regeneration and recovery or being produced by vaporization are passed into a condenser, then a condensed liquid refrigerant from the condenser is passed through the central pipe from above the heat exchanging double spiral pipe and is regenerated as a liquid refrigerant, and then the regenerated liquid refrigerant is recovered into the recovery bomb; and a refrigerant charging channel for charging the collected equipment with the liquid refrigerant regenerated from the gaseous refrigerant. In the refrigerant processing apparatus, recovery, regeneration and charging processes for the refrigerant to be recovered from the collected equipment are selectively controlled and carried out, and the external pipe through which the oil-containing refrigerant passes and the central pipe through which the refrigerant p
Ali Mohammad M.
Dengen Co., Ltd.
Tapolcai William E.
Westerman Hattori Daniels & Adrian LLP
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