Inhibited Glycol, Industrial Coolant or Synthetic Organic/Silicone Fluids

Inhibited Glycol, Industrial Coolant or Synthetic Organic/Silicone Fluids?

Don’t know whether a synthetic or glycol based fluid is best for your system? Well, we’ll try to take some of the guesswork out for you. Listed below are some common applications for synthetic, glycol and industrial coolants. Once the fluid type is determined, usually the biggest differentiator between fluid grades is the operating temperature!  

Inhibited Glycol
Industrial Coolant
Synthetic Organic/Silicone Fluids

Inhibited Glycol Fluids

Choose DOWTHERM™, DOWFROST™, and DOWCAL™ Glycol-based Fluids for:
Freeze & Corrosion Protection — Freeze Point Depression — Single Fluid Heating & Cooling

  • HVAC system freeze/burst/corrosion protection
  • Thermal energy storage (TES) systems
  • Ground source heat pumps
  • Hydronic heating systems
  • Immersion freezing or chilling of solid, wrapped foods
  • Brewery, winery other beverage processing
  • Moderate temperature batch processing
  • Refrigeration coil defrosting
  • Conveyor roller defrosting
  • Process chilling
  • Sidewalk snow melt systems
  • Radiant floor heating
  • Refrigeration warehouse floor heating
  • Cooling liquid foods
  • Fermentation cooling
  • Cold room dehumidifying
  • Heat recovery
  • Solar heating
  • Ice skating rinks

Download properties comparison table for DOWTHERM, DOWFROST, and DOWCAL glycol-based fluids (65KB PDF)

Back to top

Industrial Coolants

Choose NORKOOL™ and AMBITROL™ coolants to mitigate liner cavitation corrosion in both high-speed and low-speed engines. Improperly inhibited aqueous or glycol-based coolants often lack the long-term scale and corrosion protection provided by industrially inhibited ethylene glycol and propylene glycol coolants like NORKOOL and AMBITROL coolants. Industrial coolants also provide freeze protection for engines not currently in use.

  • "Integral" natural gas compressor engines
  • Drilling equipment
  • Liquid-cooled cogeneration and industrial engines
  • Heat tracing systems
  • High-speed stationary engines
  • Natural gas pipeline heaters
  • LNG-LPG vaporizers
  • Natural gas well-head heaters
  • Crude oil/batter heaters and tracing lines
  • Other indirect heaters
  • Standby engines
  • Periodically operated engines
  • Mothballed equipment

Back to top

Synthetic Organic/Silicone Fluids

Choose DOWTHERM Synthetic Organic and SYLTHERM†1  Silicone Fluids for:
Process Heating — Single Fluid Heating and Cooling — Sub-Zero Applications

  • Indirect heating of process liquids and polymers
  • Single fluid heating and cooling (particularly pharmaceutical batch processing)
  • Non-pressurized high temperature heat transfer systems
  • Pipeline tracing to maintain process temperatures
  • Energy recovery
  • Low pressure cogeneration systems
  • Drying and heating of bulk materials
  • Solar energy collection and storage
  • Gas processing
  • Ebullient cooling
  • Sub-zero applications including environmental test chambers and commercial food freezer loops

Download properties comparison table for the DOWTHERM synthetic organic and SYLTHERM silicone fluids (65KB PDF)

Back to top



† Trademark of Dow Corning Corporation.
1 Dow is a distributor of SYLTHERM products manufactured by Dow Corning Corporation.


®™* Trademark of The Dow Chemical Company ("Dow") or an affiliated company of Dow.