BRUSSELS, Belgium, 3 August 2020: Germany-based publishing house, VDE VERLAG’s Natürliche Kältemittel – Anwendungen und Praxiserfahrungen, which offers a comprehensive practical guide to working with natural refrigerants, including CO₂, ammonia, hydrocarbons and water, will soon see an English version. The English edition will be titled Natural Refrigerants: Applications and Practical Guidelines, and is being adapted for a global audience, in particular with reference to standards, the publishing house said through a Press release.

“VDE VERLAG is very happy to team up with shecco,” said Bernd Hansemann, Product Manager for HVAC&R textbooks, VDE VERLAG. “VDE VERLAG’s excellent authors and content, combined with shecco’s expertise in international marketing of natural refrigerant subjects, is the perfect base to spread the knowledge into the market.” shecco is a market accelerator that has been active in helping to bring climate-friendly technologies faster to the marketplace, the publishing house said.

The book was the brainchild of Professor Michael Kauffeld of the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences, in Karlsruhe, Germany, the publishing house said, adding that he wrote the chapters on thermophysical properties, ice slurry and N₂O as refrigerant for applications below -50 degrees C (-58 degrees F) focusing on air-cycle technology. He is one of the textbook’s three editors, the publishing house further said. The other editors are Michael Eckert, Co-Owner and Chief Engineer at the ammonia refrigeration company, Kälte Eckert; and Volker Siegismund, Professor at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Mosbach, the publishing house added.

Each chapter is written by an expert in the specific area. Professor Armin Hafner of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology wrote the chapter on CO₂, the publishing house said. Eckert contributed the ammonia chapter. Joachim Schadt, Managing Director and Owner of Secon, a company that builds hydrocarbon chillers, and his former colleague Irmgard Bauer, wrote about hydrocarbons. Juergen Suess, former CTO of Efficient Energy, the company that developed the water-only eChiller, together with his colleague Florian Hanslik, covered water as refrigerant, the publishing house said.

“When talking to people in the refrigeration industry about how to use natural working fluids, the lack of information and training is always mentioned as the number one obstacle,” Kauffeld said. “This book can help spread knowledge about the safe and energy efficient use of natural refrigerants for the benefit of the environment – and often also for the economy.”

Ilana Koegelenberg, Market Development Manager, shecco, added: “Time and time again, the lack of suitable training material in the natural refrigerant space has been cited as an ‘excuse’ for slowed progress towards more sustainable HVAC&R solutions. When we first came across the German textbook, we immediately saw an opportunity to also bring this expert knowledge to the global stage and really offer a technology-neutral answer to the training challenge.”

The 300-plus-page textbook is aimed at an audience of planners, plant designers and operators of refrigeration and air conditioning systems, builders, architects, apprentices and students in the field of refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pumping technology, the publishing house said. It presents the experiences and techniques of industrial refrigeration and transfers them to commercial refrigeration applications. It also covers general conditions and legal requirements for the use of natural refrigerants, the economic efficiency of the refrigeration systems, and additional knowledge on handling these systems, the publishing house said. Tables, pictures and plant diagrams, it further said, are used to show examples of practical implementations.

“shecco is very excited about what this textbook could do for raising the bar for natural refrigeration installations around the world – not only from a safety point of view but also in terms of efficiency,” Koegelenberg said. “We firmly believe that by making this knowledge accessible to all, we can greatly accelerate the adoption of natural, clean cooling technologies around the world.”
According to the publishing house, print and online editions of the English translation will be available beginning in October/November 2020 at the VDE online shop.