Helping the shipping industry find increasingly sustainable systems for refrigerated transport, Carrier Transicold presented a natural refrigerant technology for container refrigeration at Intermodal Europe 2010. The company’s newest container refrigeration unit design, to be known as NaturaLINE, incorporates this technology.
Carrier’s natural refrigerant technology has been used to create a container refrigeration system incorporating carbon dioxide (CO2) in place of conventional synthetic hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, which have higher global warming potential (GWP). The system is being engineered to deliver efficiencies achieved by Carrier’s PrimeLINE unit.
The company has already placed demonstration units in service for around-the-world tests with Hamburg, Germany-based Hapag-Lloyd. In 2011, Carrier will extend the program with full field trials.
The natural refrigerant CO2, also known as R-744, is non-ozone-depleting with a GWP of only one, compared with conventional container system refrigerants R-134a and R-404A that have GWPs of 1320 and 3260, respectively. The use of CO2 adds no new environmental risk in the event of a leak.
“Equal to achieving a GWP of one is doing so while advancing energy efficiency at the same time,” said Chiou Fun Sin, Carrier vice-president, Global Container Refrigeration.
Carrier’s natural refrigerant container technology incorporates many innovations, some of which are new to container refrigeration applications. For example, the system includes a new gas cooler/condenser coil that wraps around the fan and has enhanced surfaces to maximize heat transfer. It also takes advantage of a new marine-duty multi-stage compressor. New power electronics and an advanced software control system combine to efficiently optimize fan speeds and compressor capacity to match cooling loads and temperature control.
Carrier is a business unit of United Technologies Corporation (NYSE: UTX). Visit www.container.carrier.com for more information.
