For you the story of Angelantoni is not just the story of an important Italian company, it’s also the story of your family. How did Angelantoni Group come into being and how did it grow?

The Group, which celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2022, was founded in Milan by my grandfather, who was born in Umbria but, like many others in those years, moved North in search of work. After starting his own business in the refrigeration industry in 1932, he decided to return to Umbria in 1967, initially just to open a branch there, at Massa Martana, yet within the space of 10 years he’d transferred the beating heart of the company to his home region. Eventually, thanks to takeovers and new businesses, the company became a Group which now has operations in Germany, France, India, and China and employs a total of about 500 people.

Which are the Group's businesses?

The very first company founded by my grandfather Giuseppe was called Frigoriferi Angelantoni. The core business has therefore always been refrigeration technology, in several different sectors. Historically, the most important field was climatic chambers for environmental tests. These are instruments that reproduce particular or extreme climatic and environmental conditions to test the resistance of products and mechanical components. We work mainly with automotive, telecommunications and aerospace industries. In. short, we manufacture space simulators that can reproduce the extreme climatic conditions of space on earth and operate around the world providing solutions, making bespoke chambers for specific applications. When the Similaun Mummy, also known as Ötzi, the male individual from the Copper Age (3300 - 3100 years BCE) was discovered, perfectly preserved, on a glacier on the border between Italy and Austria in 1991, the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bozen commissioned us to create the climatic chamber inside which the mummy is preserved. In that case, we had to reproduce, with the utmost accuracy, the humidity and temperature conditions typical of the glacier where Ötzi was found, but without the ice so that visitors could actually see the mummy. Another business unit deals with refrigeration technology applied to the preservation of biological and pharmaceutical materials, which produces freezers for hospitals and research facilities. We produced the freezers for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines during the pandemic. Recently, however, we have branched out to the renewables sector as well.

And which technologies and products do you provide for the renewables sector?

In partnership with Archimede Solar Energy, we produce receiver tubes for thermodynamic solar power plants. This is a technology that is not applied to domestic use like photovoltaics, but to large solar power plants that replace thermoelectric plants. In some areas of the world, this technology is being used to hybridise existing large turbo-gas plants, providing the renewable component of solar energy, reducing the environmental impact of fossil fuels. The production of the receiver tubes, which is currently all-Italian, will in time be partly moved to China for an Italian Chinese co-production.

How is the group organised in terms of research and development?

The parent company provides the cross-sector services: human resources, legal assistance, information technology, but apart from that each company, under general coordination, has its own unit specialising in research on specific technologies, also pursuing partnerships with other companies, universities, or research centres. In the case of Archimede Solar Energy, for example, our 15-plus-year-long partnership with ENEA has played a fundamental role.

Research and development in partnership with universities has resulted in Turboalgor, an innovation consisting of the application of automotive technology to refrigeration. Can you explain how it works and what benefits it can bring?

To fully understand the innovation introduced by Turbolagor, I must first explain an inefficiency that typically afflicts all refrigeration systems today. The expansion valve contained in all refrigerators serves the purpose of lowering the pressure of the refrigerant, which translates into a loss of energy. Turboalgor can recover a large part of the lost energy using a turbine (for HFC or HFO refrigerants or Propane) and a Free Piston Expander (for CO2), which pre-compresses the fluid as it leaves the evaporator before it enters the refrigeration compressor, causing the latter to work less. The energy saved means more efficiency for the system. The savings achieved by Turboalgor are among the highest available on the market today, under the same operating conditions. Furthermore, the moment the fluid is pre-compressed, the cooling capacity of the unit also increases. This has a twofold advantage. The project was initiated over 10 years ago, as a partnership with the University of Roma Tre for the turbine and independently for the FPE. The turbine, conceptually derived from the turbocharger present in the engines of motor vehicles, was the very first example of transfer of technology from motor engines to refrigeration. The idea, which originated from our R&D, led to three international patents owned by Turboalgor.

To which sectors can this innovation be applied? And what advantages does it offer from a competitive and environmental point of view?

The first application concerns the cold chain, i.e. logistics for supermarkets and food companies, but also the pharmaceutical sector. Another application, already patented, tested and currently in the pre-industrialisation phase, is in industrial air conditioning, for facilities such as large shopping centres, resorts and hotels or large industrial sites. To understand the industrial and environmental benefits of the Turboalgor technology we must mention some figures. Depending on the type of coolant used by the machine to which it is applied, the technology offers up to 23% energy savings, with an increased cooling capacity of up to 50%, even 55% in some cases. The wider the differences between the cold temperatures to be achieved and the outside temperatures, the more Turboalgor ensures savings and efficiency. Translated into environmental terms, the Turboalgor technology has an incredible potential for decarbonisation. Domestic and industrial refrigeration, together with air conditioning systems, is responsible for 10% of the world's CO2 emissions, or 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. Potentially, therefore, if the technology were applied to all refrigeration and air conditioning systems worldwide, this would save 500 million tonnes of CO2. Among the enterprises that are already using Turboalgor are Fiorucci in the food sector, Acs Dobfar in the pharmaceutical sector, and Stef Group in logistics.

Decarbonisation and environmental sustainability is a crucial issue for your industry, the refrigeration industry. How are you going about it and which measures have you adopted as a Group?

This year we issued our first sustainability report on GRI standards, on a purely voluntary basis because we are under no obligation to do so. Our commitment, however, started back in 2005, when we installed a biomass power plant, making our industrial building totally independent, as far as thermal energy is concerned. Plus, we have five photovoltaic systems distributed over the various manufacturing buildings. Regarding social sustainability, on the other hand, our Group is deeply rooted in our local community, following in the footsteps of my grandfather who returned to his region of Umbria from Milan. Thanks to our collaborations with higher technical institutes, with which we have organised an ad hoc training course on industrial refrigeration, we are now able to train young people who can find employment opportunities in the company, without having to leave their region.

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