Italian OEM MTA has added an air-cooled liquid propane (R290) air-conditioning chiller with expanded capacity, the iARIES N Inverter, to its chiller lineup.
The chiller, which includes inverter reciprocating compressors, has a 177–334kW (50–95TR) nominal cooling capacity. It was displayed at the Chillventa trade show in Nuremberg, Germany, October 11–13.
MTA has been around for 40 years and has traditionally focused on industrial process refrigeration chillers charged with f-gas. However, thanks to an increase in requests from its customers for R290 products, MTA started to expand its propane offering and look into air-conditioning as well.
Earlier this year, MTA debuted the TAE N Mini series of small-capacity, industrial air-cooled R290 chillers with cooling capacities from 1.7–4.4kW (0.48TR–1.3TR). Since then, the company has been working on larger-capacity R290 chillers such as this iARIES N Inverter, which debuted in July at the 2022 Mostra Convegno Expocomfort tradeshow in Milan.
“We believe that the future will go that way,” said Eric Cremer, Marketing Director at MTA, about the increase in R290 demand, during an interview at Chillventa. As a result, MTA is working strongly on moving into the R290 market.
“R290 has a very strong performance and energy efficiency in operating limits, which is very important for our company,” he added. “Because we work in industrial processes, the operating limits are important.”
MTA has had a lot of requests for R290 products already, Cremer said. “But it’s still new for us, so we are not 100% ready to push that strongly yet.” Still, the company is working on additional ranges and promises that “there are a lot of technological advancements coming up.”
Not all MTA’s suppliers are advanced in offering the componentry needed for this R290 range, and MTA will expand more quickly as these become more readily available, he said.
“R290 has a very strong performance and energy efficiency in operating limits, which is very important for our company.”
Eric Cremer, MTA
A closer look at the chiller
The new iARIES N chiller features all the main hydraulic and mechanical components integrated inside the unit as standard, according to a company statement released at Chillventa. A low-noise acoustic configuration is also possible.
“An extensive range of options, coupled with wide operating limits makes the iARIES the perfect plug-and-play solution for a variety of air conditioning applications,” according to MTA.
The efficiency of iARIES N chillers exceeds the latest Ecodesign standard for air-conditioning applications and is guaranteed by Eurovent-certification, said MTA.
