Solid sorption truck freezer wins award
1st August 2017
GERMANY: Students from Germany, Italy and China are this year’s recipients of Eurammon’s awards for pioneering research in the field of “natural” refrigerants.
First prize in the biennial Natural Refrigeration Award went to Peng Gao from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China for his dissertation on the development of an innovative solid sorption freezing system for refrigerated trucks. The system uses the exhaust gas generated by combustion of the fuel in the truck engine at temperatures between 200°C and 500°C for refrigeration in a two-stage solid sorption freezing cycle operated with ammonia.
“The dissertation clearly shows the potential of research in the field of natural refrigerants, also indicating the economical and ecological advantages that can be achieved with innovative applications,” commented Eurammon vice-chair Monika Witt.
The second prize went to students Dennis Lerch and Stefan Brinkmöller for their project assignment as part of their engineering course at HsKA Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, Germany.
They developed the BFBGL – the Green Line Bavarian Breakfast Preparation Unit. The mobile high-temperature heat pump has a cold and a hot water basin for cooling 35 bottles of wheat beer from 20°C to 5°C, while at the same time heating 70 Bavarian weisswurst sausages from 20°C to 80°C. The unit uses isobutane (R 600a). Due to the high pressure ratio required a semi hermetic piston compressor was selected. The beer is cooled by a self-designed tube coil evaporator with medium-high finned tubes, which absorbs the thermal energy effectively through the circulating pump. The condenser was constructed as a plate heat exchanger that transfers the heat to the hot water basin keeping the refrigerant charge as low as possible. A thermostatic expansion valve was also developed especially for the project.
The third prize went to a dissertation by Marco Cefarin from the Università degli Studi di Udine,Italy on the design of an ammonia/water absorption refrigeration system that is also capable of making maximum use of industrial waste heat at low temperatures.
