Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH)

Abstract for Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH) Part 1:

PG: EARTH will bring together leaders from the research community, industry, and educational institutions to address critical scientific, engineering, workforce development, and policy issues related to the future of refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC). RAC systems are widespread throughout modern society, enabling transportation of fresh foods, storage of medicines, and cooling of buildings.

The U.S. is a global leader in designing and manufacturing RAC systems, and the U.S. chemical industry has been a major innovator in creating the hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants that replaced ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Given that RAC now accounts for nearly 20% of worldwide energy consumption, there is an urgent need to develop new and more energy efficient cooling technologies.

At the same time, current HFC refrigerants are being phased out due to global warming concerns. There is thus a need to develop innovative new refrigerants and cooling technologies that are safe for the environment and efficient processes that enable the economical and safe recovery and reuse of millions of kilograms of deployed HFC refrigerants. EARTH will be a critical national resource to address these challenges.

This planning grant will enable stakeholders to assess a variety of important topics impacting the development of alternative refrigerants and novel cooling cycles. Innovation in the global refrigerants market is often led by major U.S. companies, but the markets for their products are global and growing rapidly. Understanding this global market landscape and developing cutting edge technologies in this space are critical components of EARTH and will help the U.S. maintain its leadership in innovation and manufacturing in the strategically important refrigerants industry.

EARTH will facilitate the formation of partnerships between educational institutions, industry, national labs, trade groups, and policy makers. The phase down of HFCs over the next two decades is estimated to create 150,000 new jobs and increase manufacturing by $39 billion in the U.S. while preventing global temperature from rising by 0.5 ºC. The ERC’s foundational components will go beyond research to include technical training and workforce development at all participant stages.

It will foster a culture of diversity and inclusion and create value within an innovation ecosystem that will extend beyond the lifetime of the ERC. Part 2:

The ERC we envision will address the basic science, engineering, education, and policy issues that are essential for meeting the many challenges facing the RAC infrastructure. Three major issues will shape the thrusts of EARTH. First, the high global warming potential of the current generation of refrigerants (HFCs) is requiring the RAC industry to again consider new fluids that balance performance, efficiency, safety, environmental concerns, and a host of other factors.

The number of small molecules and their mixtures that could potentially be used in RAC cycles is almost limitless, but only a small subset have been synthesized and tested. Second, the vast majority of RAC systems are based on hundred-year-old vapor-compression technology, but new approaches including solid-state technologies that utilize magnetocaloric, electrocaloric, and mechanocaloric effects could revolutionize the field.

Third, millions of kilograms of high global warming potential HFCs valued in the billions of dollars are currently in use around the world, and most consist of azeotropic mixtures. There is currently no means of separating and recovering these valuable compounds. EARTH will bring together experts in high fidelity experiments, advanced atomistic simulations, data science methods, and process design to develop novel refrigerants, energy-efficient cooling designs, and optimized HFC recovery processes.

The core planning group from the University of Kansas, University of Notre Dame, University of Maryland, Lehigh University, and University of South Dakota has the needed expertise and experience to bring together a multi-disciplinary team composed of participants from academia, industry, national laboratories, professional organizations, and policy makers to prepare this proposal.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.