PartagerICR 2011 in Prague: a Resounding Success
The 23rd IIR International Congress of Refrigeration which held in Prague, Czech Republic, on August 21-26, 2011 was highly successful: 944 persons from 52 countries on all continents attended this key event during which 587 papers on all refrigeration technologies and applications were presented by authors from 45 countries. There were 122 sessions representing 180 hours of presentation.
Plenary lectures given by 6 internationally acclaimed experts – Susan Roaf, Lambert Kuijpers, Felix Ziegler, Philippe Lebrun, R. Paul Singh and Dominique Bestion – were highly appreciated. All 10 IIR commissions, 6 IIR working parties and 1 IIR Sub-Commission held meetings during the Congress. 7 workshops and 7 Technical Visits to 10 sites of interest were also organized.
Besides the technical programme, a rich cultural programme was proposed, including a welcome party, a concert in a magnificent Baroque church in the historic centre of Prague, a reception for students and young scientists enabling them to meet experts in various domains, and a gala dinner.
The Prague Congress also provided an opportunity to hold meetings of the IIR’s statutory bodies: the General Conference, the Executive Committee, the Management Committee and the Science and Technology Council (STC).
Several officers and members of these committees were elected:
- Piotr Domanski (USA) as new President of the STC;
- Jacques Guilpart (France) as new President of Section C (Biology and Food Technology);
- Gérald Cavalier (France) as new President of Section D (Storage and Transport);
- M.Chorowski (Poland) as new President of Commission A2 (Liquefaction & Separation of Gases );
- Yang Tae Kang (South Korea) as new President of Commission B1 (Thermodynamics & Transfer Processes);
- Michael Kauffeld (Germany) as new President of Commission B2 (Refrigerating Equipment);
- Marija Todorovic (Serbia) as new President of Commission C1 (Cryobiology, Cryomedicine);
- Silvia Estrada Flores (Australia) as new President of Commission C2 (Food Science and Engineering);
- Richard Lawton (UK) as new President of Commission D2 (Refrigerated Transport)
- Gérald Cavalier was appointed as member of the Management Committee.
The awards ceremony was a highlight of the gala dinner: the IIR Gustav Lorentzen Medal was presented to Prof. Pedrag Hrnjak (USA), the IIR Science and Technology Medal was presented to Mr Andrew Cleland (New Zealand) and 7 IIR Young Researchers Awards were also presented.
During a plenary session, Dr Stanislav Safrata (Czech Republic) and Prof. Eric Granryd (Sweden) received IIR Medals of Merit in recognition of their long-standing valuable contributions to key IIR activities.
The themes that attracted the most interest during this congress were the following:
- improvement in the energy efficiency of refrigerating systems: optimization of heat transfer (flow boiling), mini- and micro-channel exchangers, defrosting process, compressors (scroll, linear and rotary), lubrication, ejector refrigerating systems, nanofluids and nanoparticles;
- alternative refrigerants: hydrocarbons, ammonia, CO2, HFOs, HFO + HFC-32 blends; thermophysical properties, safety and containment issues;
- new developments in technologies such as solar cooling, absorption/adsorption systems, evaporative cooling, desiccant systems, thermal storage, phase-change materials and ice slurries, magnetic cooling;
- new trends regarding heat pumps: industrial, commercial and residential applications, heat recovery-based heat pumps, air-source and ground-source heat pumps;
- new trends in air conditioning (alternative refrigerants, indoor air quality, thermal comfort, control, options for mobile air-conditioning systems…), supermarkets (indirect systems, display cabinets), refrigerated transport (containers, insulation, leakage), refrigerated storage (food freezing, food quality), cryogenics (cryogenic materials, cryocoolers, pulse tubes…), cryobiology and cryomedecine, LNG liquefaction, carbon capture and storage.