ATMOsphere, publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com and organizer of the ATMOsphere (ATMO) Europe Summit 2025 on natural refrigerant-based cooling and heating, announced the winners of the ATMO Awards/Europe for 2025 during a ceremony on November 24 at the Summit in Padova, Italy.
The awards honor excellence in the development and implementation of natural refrigerant-based HVAC&R systems. Awards were given in two categories:
- Best-in-Sector/Retail End User – to Coop Demark; accepting the award was Malene Teller Blume, Quality and Development Manager at Coop Trading.
- Best-in-Sector/Industrial End User – to CERN; accepting the award was Pierre Hanf, Project Leader Refrigeration, Cooling and Ventilation at CERN.
- Innovation of the Year/Heat Pumps – to Menerga; accepting the award was Dominik Flikweert, Head of Public Affairs EMEA at Systemair, and Saša Kojić, Technical Director at Systemair Slovenija. Systemair is the parent company of Menerga.
- Innovation of the Year/Refrigeration – to MAGNOTHERM; accepting the award was Timur Sirman, CEO and Co-Founder.
The awards were based on industry nominations and other criteria. The Best-in-Sector awards were selected by ATMOsphere, which also prepared a shortlist of the Innovation of the Year finalists. Online voting leading up to and at ATMO Europe 2025 determined the winner of the Innovation of the Year awards.
Best-in-Sector/End Users
The Best-in-Sector awards are given to end users, one retail and one industrial, that have done the most to advance adoption of natural refrigerant-based systems.
Coop Denmark, part of the Coop Trading Group of Nordic retailers, is the winner of the ATMO Europe 2025 Best-in-Sector/Retail End User award.
Coop Denmark is the country’s largest retailer, with more than 1,000 stores. The company has been pushing back against PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) in products for more than a decade, and Teller Blume shared examples of its product bans during the PFAS panel at the ATMO Europe Summit.
In 2015 Coop Denmark banned products with PFAS paper and cardboard packaging, which led to it pulling microwaveable popcorn from store shelves as there were no PFAS-free popcorn bags. It introduced its own PFAS-free microwaveable popcorn later that year. In 2016 it banned PFAS in outwear, textiles and home textiles. Two years later it banned PFAS in cleaning, cosmetics and personal care products, and in 2023 it took aim at PFAS outdoor textiles and garden furniture. In 2024 PFAS frying pans were banned.
Along with product bans, Coop Denmark has also contributed to national anti-PFAS legislation. It started a campaign in 2017 to ban the use of PFAS in paper and cardboard food contact materials (FCM). In September 2019, Denmark announced it would ban PFAS in FCM – the ban went into effect in July 2020 – making it the first country to do so. In addition, Coop Denmark works with organizations like ChemSec to advocate for PFAS bans at the EU level.
CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) has won the ATMO Europe 2025 Best-in-Sector/Industrial End User award.
CERN, established in 1954 and situated near Geneva along the French–Swiss border, is a particle physics laboratory that operates the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC is a 27-kilometer (16.7-mile) ring filled with superconducting magnets and other accelerating structures. Subatomic particles are beamed around the ring and collide at the location of four particle detectors: ATLAS, CMS, ALICE and LHcB.
The LHC’s luminosity is being increased, meaning more collisions can happen in a given amount of time. CERN’s goal is to increase the LHC’s luminosity by a factor of 10, and it plans to complete the project by 2030. However, to do so, it will need to upgrade the refrigeration systems of its particle detectors.
The process of installing larger refrigeration systems for ATLAS and CMS began recently. CERN opted for CO2 (R744) refrigeration systems, which replaced the previously installed synthetic systems.
The new CO2 refrigeration system for ATLAS has a cooling capacity of 300kW (85.3TR) while the CMS refrigeration system has a cooling capacity of 500kW (156TR), with both capable of delivering cooling down to −53°C (−63.4°F). The ATLAS refrigeration system will consist of seven cooling plants and six accumulators, and the CMS refrigeration system will have nine cooling plants and eight accumulators.
Innovations of the Year
The Innovation of the Year awards are given to companies that have produced natural refrigerant-based products that have had, or are expected to have, a significant impact on the market. These products can be complete systems or components of systems.
Menerga won the vote for the Innovation of the Year/Heat Pump award for its CO2mpass air-handling unit with heat pump. Menerga’s new prototype air-handling unit is designed for public pool dehumidification – it also heats the pool and can provide domestic hot water – and features an integrated CO2 heat pump with 25kW (7.1TR) of heating capacity with an outlet water temperature of up to 70°C (158°F). The German HVAC designer and manufacturer showed the prototype at ISH 2025 in Frankfurt back in March. A CO2mpass air-handling unit will soon be launched with a reversible integrated heat pump, according to the company.
In addition to Menerga, the shortlist of candidates for the heat pump award included:
- SCM Frigo and Fenagy’s CO₂ SMART heat pump
- ecop’s rotation heat pump
- ebm-papst’s CompaNamic propane (R290) turbo compressor
MAGNOTHERM won the vote for the Innovation of the Year/Refrigeration award for its ECLIPSE cooling system.
ECLIPSE is refrigerant-free cooling technology that uses the magnetocaloric effect for solid state refrigeration. It provides up to 1kW (0.28TR) of cooling capacity and is available integrated into commercial refrigeration products, including beverage coolers, two-door cabinets and top-loaders. It is up to 30% more efficient than conventional systems, according to MAGNOTHERM.
In addition to MAGNOTHERM, the shortlist of candidates for the refrigeration award included:
- Panasonic’s 1HP compact CO2 condensing unit
- Magnotherm Solutions’ ECLIPSE magnetocaloric cooling system
- Enex Technologies’ R290 indirect system
- Star Refrigeration’s Azanechiller 3.0
- Advansor’s ValuePack II CO2
