February 2022

February Meeting

We are happy to welcome Davide Ziviani from Purdue University for our February meeting. We are returning to our normal schedule of a lunch meeting and a dinner meeting on the 3rd Thursday of the month. Please note the change in venue for lunch, we will be having lunch at "The Bucket" at Ironwood and Northside Blvd.

Topic: Updated Refrigerants: Past, Present & Future

Biography:

Davide Ziviani, PhD

Davide is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and serves as the Associate Director of Purdue Center for High Performance Buildings at the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories at Purdue University. Davide has extensive experience in advanced heat pumping systems for various applications including residential, commercial, military and aerospace industry sectors. He is a Co-I of the NASA funded Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitats Institute (RETHi). Dr. Ziviani is a CEC Member and serves as Chair of ASHRAE TC8.3 ("Absorption and Heat Operated Machines"), Vice-Chair of ASHRAE TC10.7 (“Commercial Food and Beverage Refrigeration Equipment”) and Research Subcom. Chair of ASHRAE TC8.1 (“Positive Displacement Compressors”). Moreover, Davide is IIR Commission Member B2 “Refrigerating Equipment” for the U.S. and has been appointed to the USNC/IIR Board of Directors.

For Davide's full university biography, you can visit his profile on Purdue's website: https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/People/ptProfile?resource_id=164622

Abstract:

In recent decades, the refrigeration and air conditioning sciences have been in a state of flux primarily because of the phase-out of ozone-depleting CFC and HCFC refrigerants, and secondarily because of environmental concerns related to the direct global warming impacts of some of the replacement refrigerants. Due to these concerns, there is significant renewed worldwide interest in using substances that are naturally occurring in the biosphere as refrigerants, which are considered benign to the environment and are termed “natural working fluids”. Surprisingly, many of these substances were already used as refrigerants at the dawn of the refrigeration technology in the late 1800’s. Thus, when looking at the refrigerants of the future, it is essential to understand which substances have been used in past. This presentation provides a broad review of the past and present refrigerants, and discusses alternative low-GWP refrigerants and their respective technologies that could be used in the future. An assessment of their characteristics related to choice of one versus another, and an identification of trends set by these choices will be made.