November 2023 *LUNCH* Meeting
The Future of Refrigerants
Speaker: Steve Kujak
Trane Technologies (ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer)
PDH Credit: 1.0 PDH – Pending
Anticipated Timeline of Events:
11:30am – check in
11:45am – Buffet Lunch
12:00pm – Start Presentation
12:45pm – Q&A
Presentation Overview:
New societal environmental demands to control climate change are driving the development of new regulatory policies to restrict and lower the direct GWP (global warming potential) impact of F-gases. The HVAC&R industry is currently being challenged to invest significant resources to understand the best refrigerants that meet the above requirements. However, there are many uncertainties and challenges given the ever-changing global regulatory environment, within regions, country, state, and sometimes locally by city.
Safe non-flammable low toxicity F-gases allowed for an exponential increase in the standard of living of society through increased food productivity, reduction in heat related deaths, increased worker productivity and migration of people to cities and to hotter climates. The orderly transition from CFCs to HCFCs and HFCs achieved a balance between the societal environmental demands for reduced ozone depletion while continuing to improve the standard of living in developing countries and minimize the societal safety (nonflammable refrigerants) impacts for everyone.
Today designers are being asked to consider new lower direct GWP unsaturated hydrofluorocarbons (HFOs) refrigerants, some of which are slightly flammable under certain conditions, as well as revisiting the application of natural refrigerants, like carbon dioxide, ammonia, hydrocarbons, and water.
This presentation will provide an update on new lower GWP alternatives introduced into the marketplace and will highlight some important considerations, particularly flammability, that engineers, designers, and building owners should keep in mind regarding next-generation refrigerants.
Presenter Bio
Steve Kujak is the director of Next Generation Refrigerants Research for Trane Technologies (divisions include Trane and ThermoKing). Over the past 29 years, he has been involved in technology development of new refrigerants, absorption chillers and IAQ cleaning technologies Steve has been an author or co-author on 50+ publications related to refrigerants and has 22 patents related to HVAC products.
Steve is a distinguish service member of ASHRAE and is involved in numerous refrigerant safety and use standards used globally by the HVACR industry. He chair of ASHRAE Standard 34 “Designation & Safety Classification of Refrigerants”. He is also a member of many ASHRAE Section 3 technical committees related to refrigerants and lubricants and is also a voting member of Refrigeration Committee Technology Committee for Comfort, Process and the Cold Chain (REF-CPCC).
He was awarded the ASHRAE Crosby Field award for highest rated presentation of a technical paper in 2016 and was also awarded the George Briley Refrigeration Committee award twice for best ASHRAE journal article on refrigeration in 2017 and 2018. He is also involved with AHRI and is participating in the Alternate Refrigerant Evaluation Program (AREP) and the ARTI Flammability Research Subcommittee. Steve is the vice-chair for AHRI-700 standard “Specification for Refrigerants” for the past 10 years He has a BS in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
His hobbies include outdoors activities, like gardening, fishing, hunting and camping with his family and also tends to his 13.5 kw solar photovoltaic system. Steve participates with local organizations working on environmental sustainability minded projects, like US Fish and Wildlife, community government sustainability initiatives and his local energy cooperative. Steve is a past president for the Friends of the Refuge-Mississippi River Pools 7 & 8 group which supports the US Fish and Wildlife conservation efforts for local Mississippi River wildlife refuges.
Registration includes a barbeque lunch buffet of two meat choices and 3 side options (varies every meeting). Please notify a board member when checking in at the front desk of any dietary restrictions and accommodations will be made.
Registration
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