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Vortex tube
Nex Flow Air Products Corp.

Vortex Tube History is interesting. It was invented by George Ranque in 1928 by accident. It was in 1945 that Rudolph Hilsch published a famous paper on the vortex tube. James Maxwell once postulated that we would someday be able to get the help of a “friendly little demon” to get hot and cold air from the same device who would sort the hot and cold molecules of air. With such history, the vortex tubes is also called Maxwell’s Demon tube, the Hilsch tube and the Ranque vortex tube.

Vortex Tube are devices that work on a standard compressed air supply. Air enters the vortex tubes and literally splits the air flow into two parts - cold air at one end, and hot air at the other - all without any moving parts.

Vortex Tube have an adjustable valve at the "hot" end which controls the volume of the air flow, and the temperature exiting at the cold end. By adjusting the valve, you control the "cold fraction" which is the percentage of total input compressed air that exits the cold end of the vortex tube.

Inside is the interchangeable brass "generator" which can alter the air used in the vortex tube, and control the temperature ranges you wish to have at the cold and hot ends. There are several ranges of generators for compressed air capacity. There are also two basic types of generators - one to produce the extreme cold temperatures (maximum cold temperature out called the "C generator") and one type to produce the maximum amount of cooling (maximum refrigeration called the "H Generator").