Interview: China Will Be the World’s Leading Market for Natural Refrigerant Systems, Says ArkRef’s CEO

NaturalRefrigerants.com spoke to Noah Song about the company’s work with CO2 and propane and the state of naturals in China.

In 2025 there were 25 supermarkets and 10 industrial sites in China with transcritical CO2 (R744) refrigeration systems, according to ATMOsphere, publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com. That same year there were an estimated 111,650 stores and industrial sites in Europe using transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems. While that gap is immense, Noah Song, CEO at Chinese industrial refrigeration systems manufacturer ArkRef believes it can be closed – with domestic manufacturers leading the way.

“China will become not only the world’s largest market for natural refrigerant applications but also a major center for technological innovation and equipment manufacturing,” said Song.

His prediction is backed by ArkRef’s decades of experience with natural refrigerants, which dates back to 2008. While China is known as the world’s factory, the company sees its engineering capabilities as its competitive advantage. That engineering prowess was on full display during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, with an ArkRef transcritical CO2 refrigeration system used for the ice rink that held speed skating events.

“ArkRef aims to bring the full weight of more than three decades of industrial refrigeration experience together with natural refrigerant technology to deliver more efficient, reliable and low-carbon industrial refrigeration systems to customers worldwide,” said Song. “Our goal is not to be an ordinary equipment manufacturer but to be a trusted system-solutions partner for the global industrial refrigeration industry.”

Song recently spoke with NaturalRefrigerants.com about how ArkRef aims to gain that trust. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

When did ArkRef begin developing products with natural refrigerants?

Noah Song: Shenzhou Refrigeration was founded in 1989 and for more than three decades has focused on the R&D, manufacturing and engineering services of industrial refrigeration systems. After joining Moon Environment in 2014, we further integrated the group’s resources in compressors, heat exchangers and the broader supply chain, which accelerated the development and international expansion of our natural refrigerant products.

We began investing heavily in CO2 and other natural refrigerant technologies in 2008. Our first unit was an R404A/CO2 cascade system built for a quick-freeze tunnel. Many companies entered this field because regulations pushed them to. ArkRef’s decision was based more on our own read of where the industry was heading. We believe that competition in the refrigeration industry going forward will not be about the refrigerant alone – it will be about who can make the entire system more efficient, more reliable and easier to maintain.

That is why we invest not only in product development but also in system design, control strategy, engineering delivery and long-term operational capability. ArkRef has always held to one belief: We are not selling equipment. We are delivering an industrial refrigeration system built to run reliably for more than 10 years.

Which countries or regions currently show the strongest demand for ArkRef’s CO2 systems, and what are the main applications?

NS: Europe remains the world’s most mature market for CO2 applications. North America is growing quickly, and Southeast Asia is now entering a phase of rapid development. We’re seeing CO2 move beyond supermarket refrigeration into industrial refrigeration – food processing, cold chain logistics, biopharma and industrial heat pumps are all placing higher demands on reliability and total lifecycle cost.

ArkRef has always been rooted in industrial refrigeration. We focus more on system design under complex operating conditions rather than on the performance of any single unit. Our strength isn’t manufacturing a CO2 rack. It’s designing the overall solution best suited to a customer’s specific process and operating conditions.

“We will exhibit a high-efficiency, low-charge R290 chiller at Chillventa this October.”

Noah Song,
CEO of ArkRef

ArkRef has worked with CO2 in North America, specifically in New Jersey. What can you tell us about this project?

NS: This is an important project for ArkRef’s entry into the North American market and a practical demonstration of our industrial CO2 solutions. The project uses a transcritical CO2 system optimized for local climate conditions and the customer’s process requirements, achieving strong operating efficiency and reliability while meeting the required cooling capacity.

Industrial customers care most about whether a system will remain stable, energy efficient and easy to maintain over the next decade or longer. That’s why we place so much emphasis on how the whole system comes together – compressor configuration, control logic, heat recovery and commissioning optimization – rather than any single piece of equipment. The real competitive edge in CO2 going forward won’t be the product itself. It will be engineering capability.

ArkRef exhibited a propane chiller at China Ref 2026. What applications is the chiller aimed at, and is it commercially available?

NS: This R290 chiller is aimed mainly at small- and medium-scale chilled-water applications: industrial cooling, laboratories, biopharma, new-energy testing and commercial buildings. During development we focused on energy efficiency, safety and achieving a low refrigerant charge.

The product is already commercially available and is being deployed in China, and we’re actively pursuing certification in Europe and North America. We will also be exhibiting a high-efficiency, low-charge R290 chiller at Chillventa this October. Looking ahead, R290 will be valuable not just for conventional chillers but increasingly in industrial process cooling as well.

Can you describe the current state of the natural refrigerants market in China? Which sectors are the early adopters in, and what is the next area to be disrupted?

NS: China’s natural refrigerant market has developed markedly faster in recent years. Industrial cold storage, food processing and cold chain logistics remain the most mature areas of application.

At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, CO2 refrigeration equipment was used at a number of venues, and ArkRef’s CO2 systems were successfully deployed at two of them. At the National Speed Skating Oval in particular, our CO2 refrigeration equipment ran stably and efficiently, helping athletes break Olympic records 11 times and earning the venue’s ice the nickname “the fastest ice.”

Looking forward, we’re especially optimistic about industrial heat pumps, data center cooling, industrial waste heat recovery and industrial process cooling. The AI era is driving greater heat rejection demand as well as new opportunities for waste heat utilization, and CO2 and R290 will play an increasingly important role in these areas. 

Why did ArkRef join the NaturalRefrigerants.com marketplace?

NS: NaturalRefrigerants.com is the most influential professional platform in the global natural refrigerants industry, and an important bridge for international industry exchange. For ArkRef, joining the Marketplace isn’t just about our products but also showcasing our engineering capability and our ability to deliver full-system solutions.

There is no standard answer in industrial refrigeration; every project needs to be designed and optimized around the customer’s specific operating conditions. Through this platform, we hope to build long-term partnerships with more design institutes, engineering firms and end customers worldwide and to help more international customers understand the professional capabilities of Chinese industrial refrigeration companies.

We believe that as Chinese companies compete internationally going forward, success will depend not only on manufacturing capability but on engineering capability, innovation and the ability to deliver sustained service.