Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 391. CO2 Oil Management (Part 2): Common Failures, Troubleshooting and Reservoir Sizing with Alessandro Silva of Bitzer

Transcript

Episode 391. CO2 Oil Management (Part 2): Common Failures, Troubleshooting and Reservoir Sizing with Alessandro Silva of Bitzer · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker: Welcome back to the Refrigeration Mentor Podcast. This is part two of what technicians need to know about CO2 oil management system. I did with my good friend Alessandro Silva. It was such a great webinar. As I mentioned, if you haven't gone to the YouTube channel, they'll watch the video so you can see the slides.
• 0:03
  So for ice CO2 ice rings these number can be as high as 10 times bigger.
• 0:06
  But if you look at the oil management system will not change regardless whether your load conditions eh are varying. But this will not affect the oil management system if everything has been designed properly. So, as you can see here, we have. On the oil level sensor control inside the oil reservoir, every time the oil level reach this there is a solenoid valve that will push the oil to the oil reservoir and from the oil reservoir to every single oil level controller that is calling for oil.
• 0:09
  Have you ever seen that before? And when they add a big, larger differential all of a sudden those compressors was able to take oil property. Have you ever heard of that before or seen that before?
• 0:12
  But yes, for part load operations, of course we still needed to, to have the liquid injectors engaged just to remove the liquid from the bottle of this additional receiver. So like you can see here, only the liquid ejector is running just to remove this liquid because of course we still have oil mixed here.
• 0:15
  So yeah, this is an example, especially for IIC Rink. We have, yeah. A huge CO2 tank. I put it together here. An example. I visit a couple of these. I CO2 icy ring in Anchorage City in Alaska. And so they have this huge tank. All compressors are medium temp compressors who do not have low temp compressors.
• 0:18
  But in this particular job site, for example, I put in here low temp ator for the sparrow freezer. And for the sparrow cooler there is an intercooler. So, as you can see here, we have oil management for the low temp stage. That's what we do not see for commercial CO2 commercial systems because for commercial system, we have the discharge line from the low temp stage, connect direct to the suction line.
• 0:21
  Alessandro: So first thing here is a good example. If you work in the field. As I used to say, compressors are driven by data without the data is gonna be only speculation. So you needed to get all these compressor system operating data to make a proper evaluation. And the fender can be used for that, not only for design systems, but you can use Fender as a service tool for troubleshooting to, to provide the pro with the proper solution.
• 0:24
  Yes, they're like, minimum, you gotta go into the compressor manufacture software and look at this stuff. There's something we don't do as technicians every day 'cause we we're not used to it. But honestly, if you get in there, it's easy to use these apps today and get in there and just select the right compressor, put the operation condition.
• 0:27
  So I can tell you tra from experience most of these solution over the time, maybe we are not working properly. So that's the reason liquid ion solenoid valve is what is recommended to prevent liquid immigration, especially during the, power outreach.
• 0:30
  Trevor: And one of the things is, that's another check as a technician, doesn't matter is the HFC or if there's a CO2, you check your suction versus your crank. What I is, if you got a big pressure differential there, you don't even have to take the compressor part. You know that, that's plugging up. And all compressor manufacturers have some sort of screen in there to protect them because there's so much dirt sometimes in these systems.
• 0:33
  Trevor: That means it's dirty.
• 0:36
  Here we have since the carbon steel we have here anywhere, we use a lot of Mueller X, HP one 30, and also the wildland K 65. But we also have stain steel and all the materials. So here it's very important. This is, this table is compliance limit from Ashray, ISOD and our own experience and research.
• 0:39
  It doesn't matter what anyone says and how these transitions start to change. We've seen this since the eighties that there's always rebuttals, but at some point, these A two Ls and these other refrigerants are gonna be gone. There for a commercial application, industrial application is gonna be ammonia and CO2 commercial.
• 0:42
  What? What causes that stuff? These are things that you want to remember when you're out in the field. The oil management system issues, you know. Coalescent filter, getting plugged debris in the oil separate. What causes that stuff? Gas cooler issues that cause oil issues. These are the things that you need to think about.