Bürkert products enhance data center reliability, sustainability, and efficiency by acting as the intelligent fluid-control layer across cooling, water, and emerging power systems. From valves and sensors up to analysis systems and controllers, they help keep liquid circuits stable, clean, and transparent to automation.
On the cooling side, Bürkert control valves, angle-seat valves, and valve islands precisely regulate flow and pressure in chiller loops, CDUs, manifolds, rear-door heat exchangers, and direct-to-chip or immersion systems, maintaining safe chip temperatures and preventing hot spots. FLOWave and other flowmeters deliver low–pressure-loss, maintenance-friendly measurement, improving pump efficiency and enabling tighter capacity control, while robust materials and modular designs reduce unplanned downtime and simplify expansion. Integrated digital communication (e.g., Ethernet/IP, Modbus, IO‑Link) lets these devices plug into BMS/DCIM platforms for real-time monitoring, alarming, and optimization.
Server-side direct-to-chip cooling circulates liquid through cold plates mounted directly on CPUs, GPUs, and other high-power chips, then rejects that heat via CDUs and building water loops to enable higher rack densities and lower energy use than air cooling. Immersion cooling submerges entire servers in dielectric fluids, transferring heat from all components into the liquid before it is cooled through external heat exchangers, particularly in single-phase systems. Both approaches rely on tightly controlled coolant flow, temperature, and pressure to protect IT hardware and maintain efficiency.
A Coolant Distribution Unit (CDU) is a skid or rack-mounted system that manages and distributes liquid between the building side (chilled or condenser water) and the IT side (direct-to-chip loops, manifolds, or immersion tanks) in a closed secondary circuit, using pumps, heat exchangers, filters, expansion volume, and controls to regulate temperature, flow, and pressure for high-density liquid cooling. In a positive-pressure CDU, the pumps keep the IT loop above ambient pressure so coolant is pushed through cold plates and manifolds, and if a leak occurs, fluid escapes outward rather than air being drawn into the system, which is the classic approach versus negative-pressure (vacuum) designs.
Data center chillers are large refrigeration units that cool the facility water (or glycol) loop so it can serve CRAH units, CDUs, rear-door heat exchangers, and other IT cooling equipment. They use a vapor-compression cycle (evaporator, compressor, condenser, expansion device) to move heat from the chilled-water loop to the outside environment via air-cooled condensers or water-cooled systems tied to cooling towers.
For water quality and sustainability, Bürkert’s 8905 Online Analysis System, multi-parameter controllers like Type 8619, and a portfolio of conductivity, pH, ORP, turbidity, and temperature sensors continuously monitor make-up water, RO/ DI systems, and cooling loops. This supports proactive treatment, protects heat exchangers and piping from scale, corrosion, and biofouling, and helps operators track KPIs such as WUE and blowdown optimization. In power and “new energy” applications, proportional valves, mass flow controllers, and gas-rated valves and sensors enable precise, safe handling of hydrogen, fuel-cell media, or auxiliary fluids, aligning backup power with low-carbon goals.
Sampling wells and maintenance locations in data centers are dedicated points in cooling and water systems where operators can safely draw fluid samples, drain or fill sections of piping, or connect temporary treatment equipment without disrupting live IT cooling. They are commonly placed on chilled-water, condenser-water, liquid-cooling, and make-up water loops to sup-port water-quality checks (pH, conductivity, TDS, microbes), chemical dosing, flushing, filter changes, and other preventive maintenance tasks that keep heat exchangers and pipes clean and efficient.
Power generation applications in data centers cover everything that keeps IT running when the utility grid cannot: uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), diesel or gas generators (often with day tanks and bulk fuel storage), switchgear, and increasingly battery energy storage systems (BESS) and hydrogen or fuel-cell–based solutions. Generators provide long-duration backup power once a grid event exceeds UPS ride-through time, with carefully designed fuel systems (tanks, pumps, filters, safety shutoff) ensuring that engines start reliably and can run for the required runtime without fuel contamination or leakage risks.
Bürkert products can anchor a data center’s water quality monitoring strategy by continuously measuring key parameters in chilled-water, condenser-water, and liquid-cooling loops and sending that data to BMS/DCIM for alarms and control. This protects heat exchangers, CDUs, and liquid-cooled IT hardware from scale, corrosion, microbial growth, and contamination while supporting water-efficiency and sustainability KPIs.
Across all these areas, the common thread is digital, decentralized automation: local intelligence in valve heads and controllers, rich diagnostic data, and easy network integration. That combination allows data centers to run cooler, cleaner, and smarter—with higher uptime, lower operating costs, and a clearer path to sustainable, high-density operation supported by Bürkert’s fluid-control expertise.
