The 2023 ATMOsphere Europe show will be taking place in Brussels between 19-20 September with a look at how the industry is adapting to current regulations and ensuring it can safely and effectively use a range of natural refrigerants.
An upcoming summit for the European natural refrigerants industry will look at the emerging applications for its product in areas such as commercial and industrial refrigeration. Case studies are being accepted for the upcoming European summit that will look at the challenges and opportunities for expanding natural refrigerants use.
Organisers of the event noted that important themes of discussion for the show will be the role of the sector in supplying products for use in heat pumps, as well as demand for refrigerated transport solutions.
Natural refrigerant ‘market accelerator’ shecco, which is organising the event, said that case studies were now being accepted until 12 May to look at industry developments in different areas of refrigeration and mobile air conditioning.
Manufacturers are being urged to provide their case studies, alongside the experiences of end users, to detail the process for moving to natural refrigerants and the challenges that are faced on specific projects.
The event’s organisers said that recent ATMOsphere Summits have looked at important market developments such as the use of integrated CO2 refrigeration systems and supermarkets to allow for meeting both cooling and heating demand from a single system.
Another emerging theme of the events was the growing use of natural refrigerant in heat pump systems as a low carbon source of heat. This will also look at how refrigerants are being used with heat pumps connected to heat networks.
Alongside technological developments, this year’s European summit will also look at efforts across Europe to revise legislation that could have a significant impact on refrigerant and chemical use.
These revisions include proposals to overhaul the EU F-Gas regulation and restrictions around the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – better known as PFAS.
Current proposals under review by European authorities are seeking to put much stricter limitations on the use of HFC products that would require the HVACR sector to move to natural products within a much shorter time frame.
Some parts of the cooling industry have argued that the proposals set an unrealistic timeframe for how the current cooling and heating sectors can develop the skills and capability to safely move to natural refrigerants. These same bodies said that industry would continue to depend on HFCs to allow for a more gradual move to lower GWP products such as natural refrigerants.
The summit was seen by shecco as a timely opportunity to discuss the direction of EU refrigerant policy and how to effectively regulate a move towards lower GWP products.
The summit organisers said that training was a critical challenge for the HVACR industry to ensure that enough engineers and technicians have the right skill to install and service systems running on natural refrigerants. These products introduce higher levels of flammability, toxicity or pressure as handling requirements that must be managed by technicians and engineers.
However, shecco said that natural refrigerants were already being used for a range of purposes with products such as propane (R290) being used in split air conditioning systems and some domestic heat pumps. CO2 was highlighted as another important product being sued by some supermarket retailers for their estates.
Meanwhile, ammonia CO2 and R290 were being used around the world in chiller systems needed for different industrial and commercial applications.
The organisers stated: “Ammonia is the most widely used industrial refrigerant in food processing and cold storage, as well as ice rinks. CO2 is starting to be used in ice rinks.”
Supplied by PR and edited by Eamonn Ryan