When Brian Fricke walks into a supermarket, evidence of his scientific achievement is all around in the refrigerated cases housing the fresh fruits and vegetables. As an Oak Ridge National Laboratory building equipment researcher, Fricke has a long history of making sure that produce is kept fresh in an energy efficient and environmentally sound manner.
Nearly a decade ago, he led research and development in collaboration with industry to develop refrigeration that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and lowers energy consumption – a system now widely used as the standard in supermarkets throughout North America.
“Seeing new technology penetrate the U.S. market, you know it never gets old witnessing that equipment in action just as a part of my daily life,” Fricke said. “It’s a feel-good kind of thing to know I had a little something to do with it.”
The big chill
Fricke’s seemingly small contribution has had a big impact on the amount of greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, that are released from refrigerators into the atmosphere. Within just three years of being on the market, the redesigned refrigeration system he helped establish reduced the nation’s annual carbon footprint by an estimated 340 million pounds by using carbon dioxide instead of HFCs as the primary refrigerant.
“My job as a researcher was to troubleshoot the system before it reached the market, making sure it’s safe and compliant and cost-effective in southern climates where use is high,” he said. “Industry looks to national labs to eliminate any problems so that they know the equipment is going to work as anticipated.”
As group leader for building equipment research at ORNL, Fricke guides a team of researchers dedicated to helping industry develop, demonstrate and deploy energy-efficient technologies in residential and commercial buildings. Fricke’s team works to improve the performance of water heaters, heat pumps, air conditioners, dehumidifiers, refrigeration systems and alternative refrigerants. They use experimental testing chambers, novel materials and computer modeling at DOE’s Building Technologies Research and Integration Center at ORNL to develop climate-friendly technologies.
Fricke’s research has helped industry deliver some of the building technologies research program’s most notable innovations, such as proving that the environmentally friendly N40 refrigerant developed by Honeywell would perform well as a standard replacement for commercial refrigerant R-404A. The industry-developed non-flammable and non-toxic N40 has a low global warming potential, or GWP. Fricke compared the performance of the two and determined that N40 increased the efficiency of refrigeration systems by 10%. This discovery later paved the way for R-404A to be largely replaced and prohibited for use in new equipment and restricted in pre-existing equipment.