Plate Heat Exchanger

A plate heat exchanger is a type of heat exchanger that uses metal plates to transfer heat between two fluids. The major advantage over convetional heat exchanger is that the fluids are exposed to a much larger surface area because the fluids spread out over the plates and facilitates the transfer of heat.
A plate heat exchanger consists of a series of thin, corrugated plates and these plates are gasketed, welded or brazed together depending on the application. The plates are compressed together in rigid frame to form an arrangement of parallel flow channel with alternating hot and cold fluids.
The advantage of plate heat exchanger compared to shell and tube heat exchanger is it requires less floor area, large heating area, the temperature approach in plate heat exchangers may be as low as 1 °C, increase and reduction of heating area is simple.