Carbon dioxide

Controlling the gas cooler outlet temperature (GCOT) in transcritical CO₂ (R744) refrigeration systems is “imperative for energy-efficient operation” of the technology in Australia – where ambient temperatures are high – according to Mike Baker, Managing Director of Australian commercial refrigeration contractor AJ Baker & Sons.

Hailiang Business Hotel in Zhuji, China, has installed six 65kW (18.5TR) CO₂ (R744) heat pump units to replace its R22 heat pumps, resulting in 50% energy savings.

Bitzer, the refrigeration and air conditioning specialist presents its SPEEDLITE ELV52 scroll compressor, which was specially developed for electric buses and rail vehicles.

Thermo King has introduced a CO₂ version of its Athenia MkII heat pump for electric and hybrid buses.

The next edition of the CO₂ and Ammonia Refrigeration Technologies will take place on April 27-29, 2023 in Ohrid, R. Macedonia. It will be organized by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering – Skopje together the with the International Institute of Refrigeration (Paris).

ATMOsphere announced the release of the “North American Guide to Natural Refrigerants in Ice Arenas,” including information on ammonia systems.

South African consultant Future Green Now (FGN) has designed an integrated CO₂ (R744) system to serve the medium-temperature load, freezers and air-conditioning of Massmart’s Makro warehouse store in Woodmead (Johannesburg), resulting in estimated energy savings of 17%.

Arneg Korea, part of OEM Arneg Group, has helped reduce the GHG emissions of a CU convenience store in Seoul, South Korea, by 67% with the installation of transcritical CO₂ (R744) condensing units.

Mark Hughes of Chemours told that an industry-wide shift to lower GWP refrigerants would require new ways of thinking about engineering priorities. This focus on moving to lower GWP refrigerants has been a central focus for the HVACR industry to meet legal targets set out in the EU and UK’s F-Gas regulations.

Automatic Heating, an Australian provider of heating and cooling systems to the commercial HVAC market, has installed 11 CO₂ (R744) heat pumps from Japanese manufacturer ITOMIC at six local Nightingale Housing carbon-neutral apartment buildings, resulting in estimated operational savings for tenants.

Carrier has launched the MiniCO2OL Compact CO₂ refrigeration unit, a new generation of its MiniCO2OL range of racks for convenience stores and supermarkets.

St. Olav Hospital in Trondheim, Norway, retrofitted the numerous cold rooms for its laboratory, on-site hotel and canteen with a CO₂ (R744) installation, complete with advanced controls and variable frequency drives (VFDs) to optimize energy efficiency and enhance system accuracy.

Malaysian HVAC&R contractor FFM Engineering recently installed the country’s first industrial transcritical CO₂ (R744) system at a cold storage facility in Kuala Lumpur, according to a presentation from Mark Leong, a representative of the engineering company, during the State of the Industry – Southeast Asia online session on the second day of the ATMOsphere APAC Summit 2022.

SCM REF Australia, Beijer Ref Australia’s manufacturing operation, has installed transcritical CO₂ systems in between 250 and 280 locations in Oceania over the past four years, noting a growing interest in all applications, particularly at convenience stores.

Automatic Heating, an Australian provider of heating and cooling systems to the commercial HVAC market, expects continued adoption of CO₂ (R744) heat pumps in the local market, having already installed more than 100 units from Japanese manufacturer ITOMIC into various commercial and residential (apartment building) projects in Australia with resulting COPs of up to 4.2.

As part of an effort to educate companies and organizations in the Philippines about sustainable cold chain technologies, Carrier Transicold, part of U.S.-based Carrier, has donated a 20ft (6m)-long CO₂ (R744) NaturaLINE refrigerated marine reefer unit to the Cold Chain Innovation Hub (CCI-Hub) in Manila.

Since introducing its Evapcold low-charge ammonia/NH₃ (R717) packaged units in 2016, U.S. OEM Evapco has installed 100 of the units across 25 industrial sites, with each site using between one and 10 units, said Kurt Liebendorfer, Vice President of Evapco.

The Columbus Blue Jackets, which joined the National Hockey League (NHL) in 2000, will become the first NHL team to skate on ice produced by a transcritical CO₂ (R744)-based ice rink refrigeration system.

German car manufacturer Volkswagen attributes the efficiency gains and resulting improved range of its first electric SUV coupe, the ID.5, to the CO₂ (R744) heat pump used for its mobile heating and air-conditioning.

The newly founded German transport refrigeration specialist ECOOLTEC Grosskopf has released an electrically driven transport refrigeration unit for trucks, including semi-trailers and rigid vehicle bodies, that uses a small charge of hydrocarbon propene (R1270) as the primary refrigerant, together with CO₂ (R744) in the secondary circuit.