An article published in the Sept. 8 edition of the New York Times that discussed R-22 smuggling has prompted a response from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI).
Using CO2 requires a different system design than the traditional HFC-based system. In fact, there are three standard design types that exist in the application of CO2 as a refrigerant in commercial food retail refrigeration systems. Each type can have variations to meet different requirements or to increase benefits.
British-based Klima-Therm has installed what it said was the world’s first Turbomiser chillers equipped with Turbocor compressor HFO refrigerant. HFOs are being promoted by some f-gas manufacturers as the next generation of refrigerants beyond HFCs.
The relationship between high-performance air conditioning and refrigeration (ACR) sealants and moisture is similar to a dysfunctional marriage. ACR leak sealants can’t live with moisture and they can’t live without moisture.
To the natural refrigerants of HCs, CO2, and ammonia, there has been added what is being called a fourth platform. Water is now being promoted in the international community with the launch of a website called www.R718.com.
A hot topic in the world of refrigeration and air conditioning continues to swirl around refrigerants and what refrigerants will take hold and be used now, besides HFCs, and what will supplant HFCs in the future.
Amidst all the talk about refrigerants such as HCs, HFOs, and CO2, the vast majority of contractors are still working on HFC and HCFC systems. With that in mind, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, contractor Brian Baker of Custom Vac Ltd., offers some perspectives on the familiar refrigerants of R-410A and R-22.
The concurrent 21st International Compressor Engineering Conference, 14th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference, and 2nd International High Performance Buildings Conference showed how dramatically the issue of global warming is impacting the refrigerant aspect of the HVACR industry and how complex the issue is.
When it comes to industrial and commercial refrigeration, high on the research radar screen are low GWP alternative refrigerants for everything from small bottle coolers and freezers to entire supermarket systems.
When the EPA’s Greenchill’s Keilly Witman spoke at the Food Marketing Institute Expo last spring she said so-called natural refrigerants would dominate the conversation and begin to appear in supermarkets in North America. Was she right?