For decades, ammonia (aka NH3; refrigerant name R-717) has been recognized as the preferred refrigerant in low-temperature (LT) cold storage warehouses and light-industrial refrigeration applications. With excellent thermodynamic properties and an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) base to support it, this highly efficient workhorse is still used by most industrial facility operators. But, the tides are slowly turning in the industrial sector, and CO2 is emerging as a green, lower-risk alternative to ammonia.
Despite its global adoption in commercial refrigeration over the past decade, CO2 has yet to make significant inroads in industrial refrigeration. Its high operating pressure and unique characteristics pose equipment design and system architectural challenges that industrial OEMs have been largely unable to overcome. However, the proven effectiveness of CO2 architectures widely used within commercial refrigeration — such as CO2 transcritcal booster and cascade systems — have provided the conceptual frameworks upon which industrial refrigeration OEMs are building upon. In theory, it’s simply a matter of scaling these systems up for industrial use.