64 // Technology

Japanese firm boasts 'world’s first' CO2 research laboratory Food Techno Engineering Co., Ltd. has opened a research laboratory to test cutting-edge transcritical CO 2 refrigeration systems and educate the public on natural refrigerants. – By Devin Yoshimoto, Rena Okabe & Jan Dusek

To

push the development o f C O 2 - b a s e d H VA C & R technology for ward – particularly in the fo o d - m a n u f a c t u r i n g s e c to r – F o o d Techno Engineering Co., Ltd. (FTE), an engineering and contracting company headquartered in Osaka, Japan – has opened a research laborator y to d e m o n s tr a te a n d te s t c u t ti n g - e d g e transcritical CO 2 refrigeration systems. The CO 2 research laborator y, named the ‘FTE Academy’, was launched as a division of Food Techno Engineering’s ma i n b us i n es s , w h i c h is to p rov i d e engineering and planning services to food manufacturing and processing facilities. Ke nji No da , F T E ’s re p rese ntati ve director, sees significant opportunities for CO 2 systems in the future and hopes that the facility will help further boost the use of CO 2 technology, not only in Japan, but also globally. “Though the handling of CO 2 refrigerant is now considered equivalent to HFCs, end users’ safety concerns have not be e n imme diately eliminate d ,” says

N o d a , r e f e r r i n g to t h e J a p a n e s e government’s decision last July to deregulate CO 2 as a high-pressure gas. “ Now m o re tha n eve r, we n e e d a steady effort from the end user’s p e rsp e c tive in o rde r to p rove the safet y of CO 2 use compared to othe r natu ral refr ige rants. Base d on the Academy, I hope that we can contribute, even just a little, to the market revitalisation and spread of CO 2 refrigeration systems,” he adds.

CUTTING-EDGE CO 2 RESEARCH T h e F T E A c a d e m y, d e s i g n e d t o simulate an actual food manufacturing facility, is equipped with a CO2 impingement tunnel freezer and a CO 2 booster unit. T h e b o o s te r u n i t i s d e s i g n e d to recover waste heat and is equipped with an air-cooled gas cooler and a water-cooled gas cooler.

Accelerate Australia & NZ // Summer 2018