The Natural Refrigeration Review is a quarterly publication that contains technical articles, regulatory and code updates, industry news and information about IIAR activities and publications. It is distributed by email to all IIAR Members and IIAR Contact lists.
SUMMER 2026 THE NATURAL REFRIGERATION REVIEW
The Natural Refrigeration Review issues are available as PDF downloads for both lIAR members and non-members, or as individual article posts below. Click the button to view the full issue, or scroll through all the individual issue articles below.
2026 White Paper: Superheat Control in Transcritical CO2 Systems: Addressing the Challenges During Part-Load and Full-Load Operations
CO2 has become a mainstream solution for numerous applications, including industrial and commercial refrigeration, heat pumps, and winter sport venues. Across all these applications, effective superheat control plays a key role in system efficiency and compressor reliability. Superheat varies sig...
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2026 Tech Paper: R-744 Heat Pumps with Ejectors: Key Performance Indicators and Control Strategies
This study experimentally investigates the use of ejectors in transcritical R-744 water-to-water heat pump systems, focusing on adjustable-nozzle control strategies to enhance energy efficiency and operational stability. Although R-744 systems offer several environmental and thermodynamic benefit...
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2026 Tech Paper: The Reverse Piston Design: Taking the Load Off High-Pressure Refrigeration and Sustainability Challenges
The industrial refrigeration and heating industries are increasingly affected by the transition to low–global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants and decarbonization initiatives. Consequently, industrial refrigeration and heating applications now often require high suction pressures due to their...
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2026 White Paper: Key Strategies to Maintain Food Manufacturing Operations During Facility Retrofits
This paper examines the growing demand for retrofitting in the food and beverage industry, driven by the introduction of new products to the market, regulatory shifts, sustainability goals, and operational modernization. It identifies the key challenges of retrofitting an active production facili...
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2026 White Paper: Forklift Safety in Refrigerated Facilities
Technological innovations have occurred in the movement of palletized goods into, out of, and within refrigerated facilities. Much recent attention has been on technologies such as AGVs (automated guided vehicles), automated pallet shuttles, high-density vertical storage...
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2026 White Paper: Absorbing the Future: Innovative Waste Heat Recovery for F&B and Data Center Cooling
The food and beverage industry is extremely energy-intensive, and there is significant potential in the waste thermal energy generated by its processes. This energy can be utilized to drive lithium bromide water absorption chillers, capable of producing low-temperature leaving evaporator fluids a...
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2026 White Paper: CO2 as a Refrigerant: A Reemerging Opportunity for U.S. HVAC Applications
The CO2 (R744) Simultaneous Chiller Heat Pump integrates cooling, heating, and domestic hot water production into a single, modular system using CO2, a natural refrigerant with an ozone depletion potential of 0 and a global warming potential of 1. By employing parallel VFD-driven compressors (20–...
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2026 White Paper: Vibration Failure Risk of Piping and Tubing
All compressors produce some vibration in the connected pipe and tubing, but how much is too much? Excessive vibration can lead to unexpected leaks that can cause hazardous situations and loss of cooling. In many food applications, loss of cooling results in significant product loss in addition ...
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2026 White Paper: Enhancing CO2 Refrigeration Reliability: The Role of 90-bar Evaporators in a Low-GWP Future
Carbon dioxide (CO2) has emerged as a leading natural refrigerant in commercial refrigeration applications due to its ultra-low global warming potential (GWP of 1), energy efficiency, and alignment with global regulatory phase-down mandates. However, system reliability, charge preservation due to...
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2026 White Paper: 2026 White Paper: Evaporators: Why Material Matters
The selection of materials in finned evaporator construction plays a critical role in determining the performance, durability, and overall efficiency of refrigeration systems. This white paper examines the importance of selecting the appropriate material for the construction of finned heat exchan...
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2025 Tech Paper: Decarbonizing With District Energy Systems: When an R744 (CO2) Heat Pump Is the Obvious Choice
R744 (CO2) industrial air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) can serve as cost-effective and scalable alternatives to conventional heating and cooling systems. Leveraging the unique thermodynamic properties of CO2, a natural refrigerant, these systems deliver high efficiency and flexibility for certain te...
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2025 Tech Paper: Measurement Device Platform Designed for the Performance Assessment of Low-Temperature Blast Freezing Systems
Air blast freezing systems are among the most widely used technologies for rapidly freezing both packaged and unpackaged foodstuffs. In many food processing facilities, freezing is a bottleneck in the continuous flow production, and thus techniques to assess and improve their thermal performance ...
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2025 Tech Paper: Sustainable Solutions for Agricultural Cold Storage: A Case Study
This paper explores the potential of integrating CO2 refrigeration systems with energy savings alternatives to maximize sustainability and energy efficiency in agricultural cold storage facilities. With growing concerns over environmental impact and energy consumption, the adoption of ecofriendly...
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2025 Tech Paper: Using Scorecards to Manage and Improve your RMP/PSM Program
As resources get harder and harder to find, we need to explore other ways to help us be effective and make good decisions. For a single plant or a corporation with multiple plants, having good information available helps us leverage our resources for the most impactful decisions. Having an Auto-P...
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2025 Tech Paper: Interior Ammonia Release: Dispersion, Ventilation, and Hazardous Zone of the Negligible Extent Volume
Currently, ANSI/IIAR 2 Standard for Design of Safe Closed-Circuit Ammonia Refrigeration Systems (IIAR 2021) requires machinery room emergency mechanical ventilation systems to provide no less than 30 air changes per hour based on the gross machinery room volume. When this emergency ventilation ra...
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2025 Tech Paper: CO2 systems: Lubricants and Oil Management Strategies
The use of carbon dioxide (CO2), especially in industrial refrigeration systems, has received a lot of attention in the last decades. As for any equipment, a correct lubricant choice and a proper oil management strategy are key for the safe, reliable, and efficient operation of refrigeration syst...
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2025 Tech Paper: Understanding Water Treatment Performance
This presentation will focus on the basic understanding of water treatment and the involvement of industry that is required to extend the life of the equipment. In order to properly protect the asset from a water treatment perspective, industry needs to be more involved and educated. This present...
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2025 Tech Paper: Lessons Learned from a Collection of Ammonia Incident Investigations
You may be familiar with the quote, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Learning from others’ mistakes can be a game-changer in the world of ammonia refrigeration. This paper contains a collection of accounts of ammonia releases and interesting details from each inciden...
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2025 Tech Paper: Applications of Ammonia and Carbon Dioxide for Decarbonization and Markets Other Than the Food and Beverage Refrigeration Industry
Author: Paul Danilewicz, P.E., Santosh Yarlagadda Enerflex Energy Systems, Inc. Houston, Texas
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2025 Tech Paper: Refrigeration System Design Using Float Expansion Valves
Large industrial refrigeration systems often suffer from operating instabilities caused by refrigerantliquid feed controls that are poorly engineered or improperly tuned. A strategy that requires more sophisticated controls potentially addresses operating instabilities but may introduce other cha...
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