On 5 June, Jan Bengsch (SINTEF Ocean) from the ENOUGH project travelled from Europe to attend ICCC 2024 in Tokyo. He took advantage of his trip to Asia to stop at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) to discuss reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the food value chain. He was welcomed by Bin Hu and Jiatong Jiang, who gave him a tour of the campus laboratory.
The laboratory, managed by Professor Ruzhu Wang, Director of the Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, houses various technologies including high-temperature heat pumps, absorption and absorption-compression heat pumps, and thermal energy storage systems. During the visit, he met two students from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) who are spending a year at SJTU as part of their double degree programme and will be completing their thesis there.
Professor Wang’s team presented their work and expertise in the field of high temperature pumps, with which they also contributed to the development of the test rig that now serves as Demo No. 14 “150°C heat pump for steam generation”. This project emphasises the existing cooperation between SJTU and NTNU.
For the ENOUGH project, Jan Bengsch stressed the importance of the 21 demonstrators, which aim to showcase and improve the latest technologies in an industrial environment. This was illustrated by several examples. The importance of using natural refrigerants for sustainable solutions was also discussed, especially when it comes to avoiding the imitation of PFAS and TFA. This means that due to a probable PFAS ban in Europe, there will be no way around natural refrigerants in the coming years. This means that global companies that want to play a role in the European market will also have to switch to natural refrigerants.
This exchange was a great example of the wonderful international collaboration that is going on in research to help reduce GHG emissions and promote sustainable practices.
