Advanced design for CO2 compressors in industrial applications

Distribution centers, ware houses, food processing plants — CO₂ applications in industrial scale are increasingly becoming the focus of operators, OEM’s and the refrigeration industry. Applications with 2 MW cooling capacity are no longer a rarity. Installations with the required capacity of up to 4 MW split between several systems with up to 65 compressors operate successfully. The convincing arguments in favour of the carbon dioxide installations are: lower safety requirements, less space for the machine room and good seasonal energy efficiency compared to installations with ammonia. Following the development of this trend BITZER designed compressors with eight cylinders for industrial applications. The main focus of the development was besides the usually high operational safety, efficiency, capacity regulation and a low oil carry over rate. This publication gives an overview of the system solutions applied in industrial scaled applications with carbon dioxide as refrigerant. Based on this, the paper describes the design of a new generation of compressors and its potential for industrial applications. It is not intended as a competitor to ammonia system solutions, but rather as an additional solution that is sustainable and based on a natural refrigerant.