MCO2 - Tecno Refrigeration's response to the F-Gas Directive

The Tecno Refrigeration R&D department has long invested many resources in a technology that keeps the company up to date and ready for the changes that the dynamic refrigeration market requires. The increasingly urgent (also moral) obligation to find alternatives to HFC refrigerants used to date, due to their impact on the no longer sustainable greenhouse effect and the need to meet 100% of the provisions of the F-Gas Directive, have confirmed the good intentions of these efforts.

The keywords that represent the cornerstones of this project are::
1) GWP (Global Warming Potential): expresses the contribution to the increase of the greenhouse effect of a gas compared to the reference (represented by CO2)
2) High energy efficiency
3) Reduction of operating costs

All this translates into a "cascade cycle refrigerating system powered by natural CO2 refrigerant", whose name already encompasses the entire satisfaction of the project objectives.

The results of the design have led to the choice of refrigerants:
• R1234ze for medium temperature TN (GWP = 6)
• R744 for low temperature BT (GWP = 1)

The first one, a brand new concept HFO, is configured as R134a drop-in and features 200 times less GWP; R744 is nothing more than CO2, fluid already used at the dawn of refrigeration that has returned strongly to the fore, given our planet's need for respect that can no longer be delayed.

The limits set out by the Directive are considerably higher (GWP<1500 for the TN fluid in a cascade cycle unit starting from 1/1/2022).

The "thermal cascade" involves a configuration for which the condensing load on the BT side is satisfied by the evaporation of the same cooling capacity on the TN side, which dramatically decreases the condensation temperatures: this has two key consequences:
• It increases the overall efficiency of the cycle
• It reduces the operating pressures, which notoriously represent a critical aspect with regard to the use of CO2 in refrigeration (the fluid works in subcritical conditions)

The CO2 is in its natural form, so the greenhouse effect on the planet is not altered.

The efficiency is inversely proportional to the electricity consumption: it is clear that an increase in efficiency also brings an indirect benefit: a lower demand for electricity and therefore a reduction of atmospheric pollution consequent as a result of its production: The results that the refrigerants used and the technology applied in this unit have demonstrated, prove how it is regarded as the best answer to meeting the objectives that Tecno Refrigeration has set itself.