The refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumping industry has been in a state of flux during the last three decades, primarily because of the phase-out of CFC and HCFC refrigerants, and secondarily because of recent advances in vapor compression technologies. Equipment manufacturers have updated their compressor designs to function with replacement refrigerants and developed new methods to integrate the compressor into vapor compression cycles. This paper provides an overview of the latest scroll compressor developments for refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pumping applications. In particular, the topics of liquid-flooded compression in scroll compressors, scroll compressors with multi-port refrigerant injection, and the use of plastic materials in oil-free scroll compressors will be addressed. In addition, scroll mechanisms have recently been investigated as expanders for their use in Organic Rankine Cycle applications. Thus, this paper also provides an overview of recent scroll expander developments. In particular, the energy efficiency of scroll expanders as a function of the filling factor and the built-in expansion volume ratio will be presented. Furthermore, the concept of liquid-flooded expansion in scroll compressors will be addressed.
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