As 2012 races to a close, The NEWS is proud to celebrate those making headlines this year — our NEWSmakers. Rather than lounge around and wait for the industry to come to them, these pacesetters rushed to the forefront, leading by example.
Rajan Rajendran has garnered recognition as one of the leading experts on the use of alternative refrigerants. His knowledge and ability has gained him recognition as one of The NEWS’ 2012 NEWSMakers.
Regulations restricting the handling of transportation of class 1 ozone depleting substances (CFCs) came into effect in Ontario on July 1, 2012. Since that date, all CFCs have been designated as wastes, and contractors and wholesalers are required to comply with R.R.O. Regulation 347.
Two new reports that provide detailed studies of refrigerants have recently been released. The research is evaluating how newer refrigerants — ranging from HFC and HFO f-gases to natural refrigerants such as ammonia, CO2, and HCs — stack up against the current crop of popular refrigerants.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new computational method for identifying candidate refrigerant fluids with low global warming potential (GWP). The new method was used to identify promising low-GWP chemicals.
Alternative low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants will be presented at the ASHRAE/NIST 2012 Refrigerants Conference: “Moving toward Sustainability,” Oct. 29-30.
The concurrent 21st International Compressor Engineering Conference, 14th International Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Conference, and 2nd International High Performance Buildings Conference showed how dramatically the issue of global warming is impacting the refrigerant aspect of the HVACR industry and how complex the issue is.
The Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Institute of Canada (HRAI) recently released the 2011 update on the Canadian CFC chiller stock study. This update estimates that approximately the same number of conversions/replacements were completed in 2011 as in 2010.
When talk first surfaced a number of years ago about using R-744 (CO2) in commercial refrigeration, there were two challenges — making the refrigerant work as a stand-alone in transcritical applications as well as in cascade systems and developing the components to make such approaches possible. Where does the refrigerant stand currently?
A joint conference focused on refrigerants and hosted by ASHRAE and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has been announced for October 2012.
