The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced US$26 million in funding for a cross-university research centre that will look into more sustainable refrigerants.
According to the NSF, the Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH) aims to create a transformative “sustainable refrigerant lifecycle” by lowering HFC emissions, creating safe, property-balanced replacement refrigerants, and increasing the energy efficiency of HVACR systems.
Refrigerant leaking and venting will be addressed by new separation, conversion, security-tagging, and waste-refrigerant-reuse technologies, spurring sustainable decision-making and new startups.
Novel, safe, property-balanced, low-flammability, low-environmental-impact refrigerants will be explored with molecular simulations of candidate fluids, development of solid-state materials, regulatory-impact economic analysis, and corporate-innovation insights.
Higher HVACR energy efficiency will be sought through new energy-efficient dehumidification materials, refrigerant-specific leak sensors, alternative refrigeration cycles, systems modelling, life-cycle analysis, technoeconomic analysis, and exploration of corporate, environmental, social, and governance activities.
The hub is part of a five-year investment of $104 million, with a potential 10-year investment of up to $208 million, in four new NSF Engineering Research Centres (ERCs) to create technology-powered solutions that benefit the nation for decades to come.
NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan said the research centres are powerhouses of discovery and innovation, bringing America's great engineering minds to bear the country’s toughest challenges.
The new centers will develop technologies to tackle the carbon challenge, expand physical capabilities, make heating and cooling more sustainable and enable the US supply and manufacturing of natural rubber.
ERC EARTH will take a multifaceted approach to address this challenge.
EARTH’s multidisciplinary research teams will focus on three key areas: promoting the recycling and repurposing of refrigerants, developing transformative refrigerants and creating next-generation cooling and heating technologies with higher energy efficiency.