The Natural Refrigerants Challenge

Societal environmental demands to minimize the effects of climate change contributions from high global warming (GWP) refrigerants has pushed today's designers to consider a wide variety of refrigerant possibilities which has renewed interest in natural refrigerants. Natural refrigerants are called "natural" because they can occur directly or indirectly in nature, but these are manufactured through industrial means.

The HVAC&R industry is currently being challenged to invest significant resources to understand the right refrigerants for thp right application that balances the sustainability and comfort, or process needs for society. While natural refrigerants or atmospheric refrigerants have de minimis GWPs contributions, they have not gained wide scale adoption because they present many challenges in designing an optimal HVACR design. These challenges include safety, efficiency, materials compatibility and chemical stability.

F-gases allowed for refrigerants that were safe (non-flammable, low toxicity) with high efficiency with good materials compatibility and chemical stability. These Fgases features allowed for an exponential increase in the standard of living of society through increased food productivity, reduction in heat related deaths, increased worker productivity and migration of people to cities and to hotter climates.

 Presenter Bio:

 Our presenter, Steve Kujak, is the director of Next Generation Refrigerants Research for Trane Technologies. Over the past 30 years, he has been involved in technology development of new refrigerants, absorption chillers and IAQ cleaning technologies. Steve has been an author or co-author on 50+ publications related to refrigerants and has 30+ patents related to HVAC products. Steve is a distinguished member and lecturer for ASHRAE and is involved in numerous refrigerant safety and use standards used globally by the HVACR industry. He is the past chair of ASHRAE Standard 34 “Designation & Safety Classification of Refrigerants” and the vice-chair of the Refrigeration Committee Technology Committee for Comfort, Process, and the Cold Chain (REF-CPCC).

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