MicroGroove / The International Copper Association

Saying that smaller-diameter copper tubing is well-suited for propane (R290) and carbon dioxide (R744) refrigerants, the International Copper Association (ICA) has announced recently cooperating with several major OEMs in projects to replace evaporator and condenser coils in existing residential air conditioning with optimised coil designs that use smaller diametre, inner-grooved MicroGroove tubes. It claimed that the air conditioning manufacturer, Chigo, had reduced the tube weight in one of its air conditioning systems by 30%, and added that Chigo Split Evaporator benefited from smaller-diameter round copper tubes.

According to ICA, the advantages of copper tubes, and especially small diametre copper tubes, in these applications are multi-fold: It listed the following benefits:

• It has high thermal conductivity, high burst strength and low tube volume.
• System-wide copper tube weight is less, thanks to smaller diametre copper tubes in new coil designs.