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Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub



HVACR has HEART.

Educators and students are revitalizing the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration industry. It’s all part of EARTH’s HEART program: Harnessing Educators for Advancing Refrigeration Technologies

ERC Overview

EARTH is founded on four ERC pillars: convergent research, impact and belonging, engineering workforce development, and innovation ecosystem, which will impact the engineering and scientific communities, the HVACR industry, and society.

Students talking in the lab

The Challenge

Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration (HVACR) are essential to the quality of life for all humans. HVACR systems are widespread throughout society, enabling transportation and preservation of fresh foods, storage of medicines, and cooling of buildings. However, most refrigerants used today are hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which have high global-warming potential (GWP), with 2000-4000 times the impact of CO2. Combined with high leak rates (direct effect — 50-90% of refrigerants leak into the atmosphere) and high energy consumption (indirect effect — 20-40% of U.S. residential and commercial building electricity usage comes from HVACR), HFCs account for 7.8% of total greenhouse-gas emissions. In response, the U.S. and 170 other countries are phasing down HFCs in accordance with the Kigali agreement, F-gas regulations, and American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act, creating a tremendous societal challenge to responsibly and sustainably replace billions of kilograms of refrigerants.

A student adding liquid to a vial

To address this challenge, a multi-institution, multi-disciplinary team put together a new NSF Engineering Research Center (ERC): Environmentally Applied Refrigerant Technology Hub (EARTH), to create a “sustainable refrigerant lifecycle” to address technical, environmental, and societal challenges facing the HVACR industry.

A stream

Our Vision

EARTH will create sustainable, accessible refrigeration and air conditioning innovations that improve the quality of life for all, address current and future environmental challenges, and secure U.S. leadership in workforce development and manufacturing.

Thrusts

A student in a lab coat looking at some equipment

Reclamation & Repurposing

Promote the recycling of refrigerants (e.g. billions of kilograms are in use today) so that blend components can be recovered as pure compounds and reused in new more environmentally friendly formulations or repurposed into new materials that are environmentally safe and uniquely functional.
Hands holding a plant in soil

Novel & Safe Refrigerants

Develop “transformative refrigerants” that have a balance of properties such as environmental, toxicity, flammability, stability, energy efficiency, system complexity, price, recyclability, and long-term availability.
Two researchers look at results on a computer screen

Energy Efficient Systems

Develop next-generation cooling technologies with higher energy efficiency than current vapor-compression technologies using high fidelity experiments, advanced atomistic simulations, data science methods, and rigorous process design.
Mark Shiflett talks to a researcher

Our Mission

EARTH will serve as the national refrigerant research center that will enable the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, federal government, policymakers, and professional and environmental organizations to (1) innovate future system technologies to utilize highly efficient and safe refrigerants with low environmental impact; (2) develop and implement new practices for effectively reclaiming, separating, and recycling refrigerants; (3) invent novel processes for converting legacy refrigerants into future products; and (4) support the education and training of an impactful workforce.

Our Policy and Impact

  • Current refrigerants (Hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs) will be phased out according to the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act passed by Congress and signed by the president in Dec, 2020 due to high global warming potential (GWP)
  • Montreal Protocol, Kigali agreement and European F-gas regulations requiring similar phaseout of HFCs in 170 countries
  • Phase out of HFCs over next two decades is estimated to create 150,000 new jobs, increase manufacturing by $39 Billion in the U.S., and reduce global temperature rising by 0.5 ºC
  • Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning (RAC) accounts for 20% of U.S. energy consumption
  • RAC industry is strategic to U.S. national interests – maintain export market
A researcher looks at a chemical bottle through a protective shield

EARTH News

Portraits of 6 recipients of Rock Chalk Ready

6 KU innovations selected for Rock Chalk Ready commercialization program

The University of Kansas Center for Technology Commercialization (KUCTC) has selected six promising research projects for its inaugural Rock Chalk Ready program, a universitywide initiative designed to mature early-stage innovations and position them for commercialization success.
A teacher troubleshoots issues with graduate students

UMD Provides "Cool" Research Experience for Two School Teachers

As a high school technology teacher, Karen Bogoski has coached over a thousand students through the challenges of engineering projects, but this summer, she was the one tackling a project, and her coaches were University of Maryland (UMD) engineering students. She worked at UMD’s College Park campus through four weeks of hot and steamy weather, while many other teachers were enjoying time off. But the muggy days only helped motivate her. Guided by a team of students from UMD's A. James Clar
Paul Downing solders a micohotplate sensor platform

Ivy Tech professors amp up their AC game at Notre Dame

From discovering novel ways to purify and reuse chemicals to creating sensors that will make cooling systems safer and more cost-efficient, teams of researchers have been working together this summer to modernize a sector many take for granted: the heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration industry. Indeed, HVACR is essential to every aspect of modern life. To move it forward, two professors from Ivy Tech, a community college with 45 locations in Indiana, spent a large part of
3 people setting up an experiment with monitoring equipment

“There’s a lot of math in HVAC”

Johnson County Community College professors worked at a KU engineering lab this summer to deepen their knowledge of the principles underlying heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) If your AC unit goes out in the middle of the summer, you call a repair company. The technician’s job is to fix the problem as soon as possible, so you can be comfortable. No theoretical conversation required. But this summer, two professors from Johnson County Community College’s Heat