Growing interest in CO2 technology

Scientists and refrigeration practitioners are increasingly interested in carbon dioxide (CO2) technology. The IIR's Fridoc database contains 198 references to articles mentioning CO2 in their titles and 448 containing the term CO2 in the key words pertaining to the article. The proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain fluorinated greenhouse gases of August 11, 2003 states that from January 2014 the placing on the market of new vehicles with air-conditioning systems containing fluorinated gases with a GWP higher than 150 shall be prohibited. An amendment was recently adopted which provides that only refrigerants with a GWP lower than 50 shall be permitted, which means that the only suitable refrigerant will be CO2. The c-dig (carbon-dioxide interest group) newsletter gives detailed information on recent realizations with CO2. Here are some examples: - distribution warehouses located in Falkirk, Scotland, and near London are running well with CO2 as a secondary refrigerant; the owner ASDA is satisfied; - in the Netherlands, 2 new supermarkets are running with low-temperature display cabinets fed with CO2 as a secondary refrigerant; - in Denmark, at Bellinge near Odense, a supermarket has been equipped with a transcritical Costan CO2 plant with a condensing pressure of 120 bars; - in Luxembourg a big CORA supermarket was partially equipped with a large low temperature CO2 chiller for low temperature (168 kW at -39 °C). Prof. Antero Aittomäki, Delegate of Finland to the IIR, has just set up a working party on CO2 linking the University of Tampere where he teaches and Finnish industrial stakeholders. Over 150 abstracts have already been submitted for the 6th IIR Gustav Lorentzen Conference, which will be held in Glasgow on August 29-September 1, 2004. According to the Organizers over 60 of them deal with CO2. See you in Scotland this summer! Surf on the Web site of the IIR for even more information on CO2: http://www.iifiir.org