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CO2 cooling for drinks and food |
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R744 is moving to become the preferred option for transport refrigeration, bottle coolers and vending machines. Check here the latest solutions developed by global system suppliers and research institutes.
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2007-08-15
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In a last of a series of articles regarding R744 in commercial refrigeration, R744.com gives you an overview of CO2 solutions for food delivery vehicles and beverage cooling.
CO2 Technology has sparked interest from companies searching for efficient and reliable systems for the road transport of frozen or fresh food and for cold-drink equipment. Leading research institutes and suppliers, such as Konvekta, Ixetic, Liebherr, Sanden, ACC, Vestfrost or the Danish Technological Institute have realized the accelerating trend by serving global customers, such as Coca-Cola and Aldi.
Transport Refrigeration: Aldi & Konvekta / Ixetic
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The CO2-based transport refrigeration system developed by the German manufacturer Konvekta has been installed in a delivery vehicle of the leading supermarket chain Aldi, leading to 50% less greenhouse gas emissions than current systems. During the 3 year test, the prototype system, using a compressor designed by ixetic, has operated reliably more than 5,000 compressor operating hours.
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Throughout this period, the system has shown a highly competitive cooling capacity and efficiency, running more than 600 hours in the delivery cycle of fresh and frozen goods. On top of that, the servicing of the R744 system proved to be less complicated than that for R134a-, R404a- or R410a-systems, with no need for recovering or recycling the refrigerant.
Beverage cooling: Coca-Cola & Liebherr / Sanden
Being committed to phase out HFCs in cold-drink equipment, the world's largest beverage company had installed around 6,000 CO2 beverage coolers worldwide by the end of 2006. Providing 1,100 R744-units for Torino's Winter Olympics, Coca-Cola tested more than 2,000 CO2 cassettes from Sanden and Liebherr at the FIFA World-Cup in Germany 2006. Since the first field tests in 2004, no technical problems have been reported. On the contrary, over a 4 month test period R744 systems lead to a 4-7% reduction of energy use compared to HFC-134a systems. Coca-Cola is now calling on other companies to accelerate a sustainable transition towards the natural refrigerant CO2.
Bottle cooler: Vestfrost & DTI
Denmark's biggest manufacturer of refrigeration and freezing appliances has joined forces with the Danish Technological Institute (DTI) to convert a R134a bottle cooler to a transcritical CO2 system. The R744 system was tested in 2006, showing good results in terms of energy consumption. Vestfrost is now planning to launch the bottle cooler soon.
Open cooling shelfs: Awarded CO2 Technology
The early serial production of CO2 units for open upright bottle coolers may be accelerated with the help of ProCool, an international project supported by the European Commission. In 2006, a bottle cooler by the Greek manufacturer Frigoglass won a special prize for innovation under this programme destined to promote the development of market-oriented equipment for commercial applications. CO2 Technology was chosen as it is expected to be the most energy-efficient solution in the future.
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More information:
› Search for more papers for Commercial Refrigeration in our Knowledge section
› Presentations from the CO2OL Food conference, 23 May
› Presentations from the Cooling with Carbon Dioxide '07 conference, 28 March
See the first article: "R744 in Commercial Refrigeration on the move"
See the second article: "Consumer goods cooled with R744"
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