ATMOsphere America 2014, held in San Francisco, California from 18-19 June attracted industry experts from around the globe to present and discuss technology trends, best practices and how to accelerate the market uptake of natural refrigerants. CO₂ has significant market potential in the transport sector, as presented by Jim Taechens, who discussed Carrier’s CO₂ refrigerated container, which has already successfully completed 27,500 operating hours.

Carrier experiences superior efficiency with CO₂ container transport refrigeration

Jim Taechens, Senior Product Manager, Global Container Refrigeration for Carrier, presented the company’s CO₂ container transport refrigeration system. The NaturaLINE refrigeration machine is designed for ISO insulated containers and is able to transport virtually all perishable and frozen cargoes. Carrier decided to transition to CO₂ as a transport refrigerant because of factors such as performance, safety, availability, cost, and the refrigerant’s low GWP. The average energy use of the NaturaLINE system is comparable to that of systems employing R134a. At part-load perishable set-points the NaturaLINE has superior efficiency.

To ensure the technology is operated and serviced correctly, Carrier offers CO₂ training for vessel crews covering: the fundamentals of refrigeration, how to work with refrigerants, how to operate the NaturaLINE unit, and servicing and troubleshooting.

NaturaLINE field trials began in 2008, and to date, more than 120 shipments and 27,500 operating hours have been successfully completed. Taeckens announced that this technology will be moving into a commercial phase in 2014. In addition to marine trials, Carrier has begun testing the technology in refrigerated trucks and trailers for Sainsbury’s.