Kinarca supplies refrigeration equipment to new tuna vessel

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Kinarca is installing all refrigeration equipment, air conditioning and provision rooms in a new tuna vessel built at Astilleros de Murueta in Bilbao, Spain.

The unnamed vessel (No. 283) will have 16 fish holds and a total capacity of 1,700m3.

The main refrigeration installation has been designed following the highest safety standards with the aim of getting the best energetic performance and COP with a very low NH3 load inside the vessel. Around 75kg NH3 will be enough to freeze the calcium chloride brine in four plate heat exchangers and pump it (by Ksb-Itur pumps) through the half pipes, walls and metal sheets floors welded in the fish holds.

To increase the freezer station inside the fish holds, Kinarca has provided four plate heat exchangers for calcium chloride brine recirculation. This step will increase the onboard freezing capacity and chill rapidly at the beginning of the process. The company explains that in the first moments of bringing the tuna to the fish hold, the fisherman will need more refrigeration capacity to get the temperature down and freeze the fish as soon as possible.

The refrigeration installation will have four Mycom-200 screw motor-compressor units that will be loaded to four shell and tube titanium condensers. The liquid NH3 will freeze the shell and tube titanium condensers and the calcium chloride brine. This brine will then be pumped through the fish hold pipes which will freeze the sodium chloride brine.

The whole refrigeration installation will be controlled by the main control panel which was designed and development by Kinarca's R&D department for application on this tuna vessel.

The air conditioning installation includes one air conditioning unit with a cold system by DX R507A. This system has a motor-compressor unit with two Bitzer OSK-7451 compressors and a Leroy Somer 55kW motor, two shell and tube seawater condensers, two seawater Ksb-Itur pumps, an oil pot and control panel. For the cabin control air conditioning, two units were installed.

The provision room (fresh and cool room) was designed with one compressor unit with two Bitzer 4N.2 compressors +15kW, three evaporators, two shell and tube seawater condensers with pumps, an oil pot and control panel.