Written by the top academics, VDE Verlag’s Natürliche Kältemittel – Anwendungen und Praxiserfahrungen, offers a comprehensive practical guide to working with natural refrigerants, including CO2, ammonia, HCs, and water. The English edition will be titled Natural Refrigerants: Applications and Practical Guidelines, and is being adapted for a global audience, in particular with reference to standards.
„VDE Verlag is very happy to team up with shecco”, said Bernd Hansemann, Product Manager for HVAC&R textbooks at VDE Verlag. „VDE Verlag’s excellent authors and content, combined with shecco’s expertise in international marketing of natural refrigerant subjects, is the perfect base to spread the knowledge into the market.”
The book was the brainchild of Professor Michael Kauffeld of the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences in Karlsruhe, Germany, who wrote the chapters on thermophysical properties, ice slurry, and N2O as refrigerant for applications below -50°C (-58°F) focusing on air-cycle technology. He is one of the textbook’s three editors. The other editors are Michael Eckert, Co-Owner and Chief Engineer at the ammonia refrigeration company Kälte Eckert, and Volker Siegismund, Professor at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Mosbach.
Each chapter is written by an expert in the specific area. Professor Armin Hafner of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology wrote the chapter on CO2. Michael Eckert contributed the ammonia chapter. Joachim Schadt, Managing Director and Owner of Secon, a company that builds hydrocarbon chillers, and his former colleague Irmgard Bauer, wrote about hydrocarbons. Juergen Suess, former CTO of Efficient Energy, the company that developed the water-only „eChiller“, together with his colleague Florian Hanslik, covered water as refrigerant.
„When talking to people in the refrigeration industry about how to use natural working fluids, the lack of information and training is always mentioned as the number one obstacle”, explained Kauffeld. „This book can help spread knowledge about the safe and energy efficient use of natural refrigerants for the benefit of the environment – and often also for the economy.”
„Time and time again, the lack of suitable training material in the natural refrigerant space has been cited as an ‘excuse’ for slowed progress towards more sustainable HVAC&R solutions”, added Ilana Koegelenberg, Market Development Manager at shecco. „When we first came across the German textbook, we immediately saw an opportunity to also bring this expert knowledge to the global stage and really offer a technology-neutral answer to the training challenge.”
Targeting a wide audience
The 300-plus-page textbook is aimed at an audience of planners, plant designers and operators of refrigeration and air conditioning systems, builders, architects, apprentices and students in the field of refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pumping technology.
The textbook presents the experiences and techniques of industrial refrigeration and transfers them to commercial refrigeration applications. It also covers general conditions and legal requirements for the use of natural refrigerants, the economic efficiency of the refrigeration systems, and additional knowledge on handling these systems. Tables, pictures and plant diagrams are used to show examples of practical implementations.
„shecco is very excited about what this textbook could do for raising the bar for natural refrigeration installations around the world – not only from a safety point of view, but also in terms of efficiency”, said Koegelenberg. „We firmly believe that by making this knowledge accessible to all, we can greatly accelerate the adoption of natural, clean cooling technologies around the world.”
Print and online editions of the English translation will be available beginning in October/November at the VDE online shop.