Cold Link Africa Jul/Aug 2016 Vol 1 No 6 | Page 23

EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN

Championing natural refrigerants
for 20 years

#eurammon20

By John Ackermann

Popping champagne corks and enjoying a birthday cake at Burg Schwarzenstein in
Germany marked the 20th anniversary of eurammon.

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he celebration followed the annual
meeting of members and the reelection of the board as:
Monika Witt, Th. Witt
Kältemaschinenfabrik GmbH
Bernd Kaltenbrunner, KWN Engineering
GmbH
Georges Hoeterickx, Evapco Europe
BVBA
Thomas Spänich, GEA Refrigeration
Germany GmbH
Mark Bulmer, Georg Fischer Piping
Systems Ltd.

The annual meeting held on 19 May 2016
also re-elected the steering committee.
Eurammon has had a long association
with both the Southern African Refrigerated
Distribution Association (SARDA) and South
Africa, so it was fitting that Isolde Döbelin of
the Open Trade Training Centre (OTTC) in
Springs, Johannesburg attended the 20th
anniversary. At the celebrations, chairperson
Monika Witt and Franz Kaltenbrunner,
one of the founding members, who have
both visited South Africa on a number of
occasions, were asked to share their views
on the past and their forecast for the future.

Franz Kaltenbrunner

Monika Witt

Franz Kaltenbrunner (FK): In the early
nineties, the issues of ozone depletion and
greenhouse effect became focal topics for
both politics and public interest. This caused
crucial changes also for the refrigeration
and air‑conditioning industry. The CFC
ban, for example, motivated the sector to
take a closer look into the potential of the
natural refrigerant ammonia — a welcome
development, which unfortunately was
soon hindered by more and more strict
regulations.
Monika Witt (MW): The chemical industry in
particular had a strong interest in making
ammonia seem acutely poisonous and
harmful to health. Seeking to counter this
trend, eurammon’s founding members
teamed up to publish information brochures
and papers that illustrated the benefits and
positive properties of the refrigerant in an
unbiased way.
Q. In your opinion, what political
developments helped or hindered the
initiative, and which role has eurammon
played in political decision making
processes during the past 20 years?
FK: European and worldwide discussions
about bans and restrictions of refrigerants
that are harmful to the climate, have
made it necessary to look deeper into its
use and resort to existing knowledge from
industrial plant engineering and construction
with natural refrigerants. Due to specific
information particularly for end users,
eurammon was able to increase the use
of natural refrigerants significantly in the
commercial sector.
MW: Right from the beginning, eurammon
has been working with the responsible
parties as a competent partner to ensure
the safe operation of refrigerating systems
using natural refrigerants. Eurammon
showcased the good technical solutions
that had been established on the market
for a long time – first with natural refrigerants
such as carbon dioxide and propane.
The members always made a point of
highlighting the advantages of natural
refrigerants without badmouthing other
refrigerants or technical solutions.
Q: The past 20 years saw the development
of many technical innovations in
the field of refrigeration and airconditioning technology. Which of
those do you see as milestones that had
a particular boosting effect on the use
of natural refrigerants?
MW: Recently the use of hydrocarbons
seems to be on the rise, especially in
the sector of commercial refrigeration.

At the 20th celebration with OTTC’s Isolde Dobelin on the far right.
Another noticeable trend is the use of
ammonia in smaller refrigerating systems.
Then there’s the rediscovery of carbon
dioxide for refrigeration purposes. Today,
it is often used in industrial refrigerating
plants or grocery stores. Another welcome
breakthrough would be water as a
refrigerant. There have been some good
approaches in the past for large cooling
capacities, and new solutions for smaller
capacities have been around for a few
years now, so there’s hope that they will be
successful in the near future.
FK: Innovations from component
manufacturers, planners and plant
engineers all helped to significantly improve
the energy efficiency of refrigerating
and air-conditioning systems with natural
refrigerants. Furthermore, approval
procedures have become simpler and
quicker thanks to drastic cuts in the
refrigerant charges.
Q: Eurammon was originally founded
in 1996 as an exclusively European
initiative — by now the members
include a great many international
companies, institutions, associations,
and individuals. What factors led to
this expansion?
MW: The enthusiasm among experts for
the natural refrigerant ammonia is a crossborder phenomenon – no other refrigerant
can claim that. Once people understand
the advantages of natural refrigerants, they
are inclined to share their knowledge and
promote technical solutions; eurammon is
the perfect platform for this.
FK: The fact that eurammon’s work over
the past 20 years was received with everincreasing interest is also as a result of

COLD LINK AFRICA • July | August 2016

the great number of lectures given by its
members at international events.
Q: What are the most urgent concerns
of the initiative right now, and what
might be future topics for eurammon?
FK: One of the most urgent concerns is
still to convince plant operators that it
is more sustainable to look at life cycle
costs in their entirety, instead of opting for
low-cost systems with refrigerants that are
harmful to the environment. In the long run,
another important point will be to replace
the biggest emission sources of CO2 in the
commercial sector with systems that use
natural refrigerants.
MW: In the future, good training and
qualifications will be necessary so
that refrigeration systems with natural
refrigerants can be used safely and in a
resource-friendly way. Natural refrigerants
are a novel concept for many plant
engineers and operators of refrigerating
systems. There is still a lot of work to do
to dis