By equipment

A third or more of annual food production is never eaten, yet more than 50% of the wasted food could have its shelf-life extended by the cold chain.

Chemours is predicting that R449A, the lower GWP alternative refrigerant for R404A, will be adopted in more than 1,000 supermarket systems by the end of next year.

With the US facing restrictions on higher GWP refrigerants, ASHRAE is looking to modify its safety standard to incorporate “mildly flammable” A2L gases.

The European Commission is to refer Germany to the Court of Justice of the EU for its failure to apply the MAC Directive.

New initiatives on reducing the consumption of HFC refrigerants are expected to save the emission of more than 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ equivalent by 2025.

Although global availability is still limited, as of March this year sales of air conditioners using the “mildly flammable” refrigerant R32 had already passed 3 million.

Daikin has approved the use of “alternative materials for jointing and piping” on its air conditioning and heating systems.

A team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is working with new materials in an effort to produce a viable energy efficient 3D-printed heat exchanger.

In a move to encourage the adoption of R32 refrigerant, Daikin is to offer rival manufacturers worldwide free access to its patents.

Green Point, Bitzer’s compressor remanufacturing operation, is expanding its service in the UK to include other makers of compressor.

The cooling demands of large hyper data centres are set dramatically change the market for precision cooling over the next five to 10 years.

First it went tiny with the mini-VRV, now Daikin has launched an “invisible” VRV air conditioning system.

A Trane air-cooled chiller employing a new low-GWP refrigerant replacement for R410A is to be presented at the IIR conference in Yokohama.

HFO-1336mzz(Z) is to be promoted as a potential working fluid for high temperature heat pumps at this week’s ICR 2015 conference in Japan.

When refrigeration and air conditioning equipment is installed, serviced, repaired and dismantled, safety issues need to be carefully evaluated and considered particularly when servicing technicians have to deal with refrigerants with properties that they were previously not familiar with. It is therefore important that the refrigeration and air-conditioning industry adapts to both the technical and safety issues concerning these refrigerants.

ASHRAE has hit back at the Maastricht University study suggesting that methods to determine thermal comfort are biased against women.

Upgrading all existing room air conditioners to highest efficiency units, combined with the transition to lower GWP refrigerants, could save 25 gigatons of CO₂ equivalents by 2030.

A settlement has been reached in the court case between the AHRI and the US Department of Energy’s energy efficiency standards for commercial walk-in coolers and freezers.

Refrigerant producers, refrigeration equipment manufacturers and green groups have welcomed the US EPA’s usage bans on high GWP HFCs.