Advanced Developments and Challenges in Refrigeration and Energy Systems
A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "J: Thermal Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 December 2025 | Viewed by 18
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The growing focus on climate change, energy efficiency, and environmental sustainability has brought the refrigeration sector—both industrial and residential—into the spotlight. Refrigeration is a key component of modern life, essential for food preservation, climate comfort, and a wide range of industrial processes. However, its environmental footprint remains significant due to the use of high-GWP refrigerants and the energy-intensive nature of traditional systems. This has prompted the research community to explore new pathways for improving the efficiency of refrigeration technologies and reducing their ecological impact.
In recent years, innovative refrigeration techniques have emerged as promising alternatives to conventional vapor-compression systems. Among these, magnetocaloric, elastocaloric, thermoelectric, and electrocaloric refrigeration stand out for their potential to provide clean, compact, and efficient cooling solutions. At the same time, advancements in components, control strategies, and thermal storage and integration with renewable energy sources are revealing new perspectives for sustainable refrigeration. Both experimental investigations and numerical studies play a central role in understanding the behavior of these systems and in guiding their development toward real-world applications.
This Special Issue aims to collect contributions focused on the development and optimization of sustainable refrigeration technologies across multiple applications and contexts. Our objective is to provide a platform for sharing the latest results in the field, encouraging the exchange of ideas and experiences among researchers working on innovative solutions for a future of low-impact refrigeration.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Alternative refrigeration technologies: magnetocaloric, elastocaloric, thermoelectric, electrocaloric, etc.
- The use of low-GWP and natural refrigerants.
- Solar-assisted and hybrid refrigeration systems.
- Energy-efficient solutions for buildings and industrial processes.
- The integration of refrigeration with thermal energy storage (including PCM).
- Waste heat recovery and system-level optimization.
- Experimental and numerical analyses of refrigeration systems and cycles.
- Advanced control strategies and smart refrigeration.
- Life cycle assessment and environmental impact studies.
- The coupling of refrigeration technologies with renewable energy sources.
- Data centers with heat recovery systems.
We welcome high-quality original research and review articles that explore theoretical models, experimental setups, or system-level implementations of low-impact refrigeration technologies that contribute to the advancement of sustainable refrigeration.
Dr. Luca Cirillo
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- sustainable refrigeration
- energy efficiency
- life cycle assessment
- smart refrigeration
- residential cooling
- industrial refrigeration
- environmental impact
- numerical simulation
- thermal energy storage
- alternative refrigeration technologies
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