Vahterus introduction

Vahterus introduction

Vahterus Oy is a company located in South West Finland that manufactures welded plate heat exchangers. Mauri Kontu, Managing Director, founded the company in the village of Kalanti, in 1990 to promote local entrepreneurship. Vahterus developed a new generation of fully welded "Plate & Shell (PSHE) heat exchangers. In PSHE the best features of the plate heat exchanger and the Shell & Tube heat exchangers are combined. It is a durable, compact and gasket free design.

Advantages of this design were quickly evident. Wijbenga noticed the potential of the exchanger for the refrigeration market and in 1994 the Finnish heat exchanger was introduced in the Benelux with the brand name Q-Plate ®. A test program was set up to optimize to the use of the Plate & Shell heat exchanger in refrigeration. The tests were done in cooperation with TNO and in 1997 the test program was rewarded by the NVKL with Cool Trophy.

Soon the heat exchangers were used as flooded evaporator in combination with separators. The big advantages of the Plate & Shell heat exchanger were noticed in the market and now there is a wide range of applications. The Plate & Shell heat exchanger is widely used as an evaporator in flooded and DX systems, as condensers, in heat recovery systems, or as an oil- or gas cooler. Due to the high demand for systems with small refrigerant charge is the popularity of the PSHE is increasing. Around the year 2000, CO2 was (re)introduced as a refrigerant and the PSHE heat exchanger is frequently used as a cascade condenser. 

In the past 30 years Vahterus produced over 50.000 heat exchangers for a worldwide network of representatives. Over 10% is delivered in the Benelux over Wijbenga B.V. Vahterus has always been an independent and privately owned company and currently over 300 employees. Within the refrigeration sector most of the heat exchangers find there way into systems using natural refrigerants. 


Most production is according customer specifications (tailor made), therefore over 25% of the Vahterus staff has a background as a technical engineer. During the past two decades Vahterus invested continuously in new products, production capacity, testing and quality improvement. In 2007 a new factory with an area of 2500m ² was added and the plate production and the shell production were separated. Production is according to strict requirements of internal and external auditors and procedures.

The main characteristics of Vahterus PSHE heat exchangers:

• Compact, easy to isolate
• suitable for high pressure
• high temperature
• no use of gaskets
• small filling content
• maintenance free, easy chemical cleaning if necessary
• customer specific (refrigeration) building possible
• easy to drain (oil)
• small temperature differences possible
• very low pressure losses and high k-value
• PN 16 to PN 60, higher on request