Carrier Transicold NaturaLINE sea trials go well

Carrier Transicold reports smooth sailing for its new NaturaLINE unit, the world’s first natural refrigerant container refrigeration system, which has been successfully navigating a rigorous sea trial program throughout 2012.

The NaturaLINE units have been performing at predicted levels during sea trials, proving the practicality of a natural refrigerant-based system for high-efficiency marine applications. To date, these sea trial units have logged hundreds of thousands of nautical miles and tens of thousands of service hours for customers, successfully delivering products, including Caribbean-grown bananas, Belgian beer, European wines, cookie dough, ice cream, meats, and cheeses. The units have been operating over temperature set points ranging from –22 degrees C to 13 degrees C on Atlantic and Pacific routes ranging from four to 29 days. More sea trial units will be deployed over the next several months.

Using carbon dioxide (CO2) as its refrigerant, the NaturaLINE unit can help alleviate container shipping industry concerns about use of conventional synthetic refrigerants, which have higher global warming potential (GWP). Combined with its energy efficiency, the NaturaLINE unit is proving itself an environmentally sound alternative for overseas shipping of frozen and refrigerated goods. It also has been validated by UL Environment as having a 95% recyclability rate, joining Carrier’s PrimeLINE unit as the only container refrigeration units to achieve recyclability validation.

The NaturaLINE unit’s CO2 refrigerant has a GWP equal to one, less than the GWP of synthetic refrigerants used in other container refrigeration systems. Non-flammable, CO2 is cost-effective, available worldwide, and requires no special disposal. There is no CO2 refrigerant tax, and no intermediate refrigerant step is required.

This unit has been optimized to provide energy efficiencies over a range of performance conditions that equals Carrier’s most efficient unit, the PrimeLINE, while also providing rapid pull-down and high deep frozen capacities.

The NaturaLINE unit’s indirect CO2 equivalent (CO2e) emissions—those created through energy production to power the unit—match the indirect emissions of the PrimeLINE unit, which are 28% less than previous equipment. The NaturaLINE unit also eliminates concerns about direct emissions in the event of refrigerant leakage, since CO2 is recycled from the atmosphere. Thus, over the life of the unit, NaturaLINE’s CO2e emissions are 5% less than PrimeLINE unit’s combined direct and indirect emissions, and 10% less than the closest competitive unit, according to published data.

Addressing the thermodynamic properties of CO2, NaturaLINE units take advantage of an innovative refrigerant management system, including a new purpose-built, multi-stage compressor with variable-speed drive, a gas cooler with a wrap-around design and optimized heat transfer surfaces, and a flash tank heat exchanger to maximize cooling.

For more information, visit www.carrier.com/naturaline.