The road to wider use of HC refrigerants remains a rocky one — although it is still being navigated. The latest developments involve more revisions to the regulatory landscape, the tweaking of a refrigerant mix to make it more energy efficient in certain applications, and, as always, warnings about flammability.
HRAI released a statement revealing that fire services could be at an additional risk when responding if the building has a highly flammable hydrocarbon refrigerant in its air conditioning system.
Utilizing input from Daimler, SAE International initiated additional safety research looking at R-1234yf, a new low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant that can be used in automotive applications. SAE said its original risk assessment is still valid: risks are well below the risks commonly viewed as acceptable.
A widespread ban of HFCs has been recommended to the European Parliament by the F-Gas Regulation review’s rapporteur, Bas Eickhout, Dutch Green MEP, who has also called for a series of significant amendments to the European Commission’s proposal, published late last year.
As the industry continues to introduce more equipment using CO2 as a refrigerant, the need for training to work with that gas is growing. In a recent announcement, Scotland-based Star Refrigeration is offering training in that regard through its Star Learning Solutions program.
As familiar as condensing units are in refrigeration systems, these components are undergoing major changes. Several of those changes are being demonstrated in a number of practical applications nationwide.
There are several designs for airflow through the evaporator coil, and for draining the condensate water from the coil, depending on the installation. The different designs are known as the A coil, the slant coil, and the H coil.
Those small-diameter coils — with names like MicroGroove, microchannel, and micro-multichannel — have gained a beachhead in residential heating and air conditioning, and are advancing in commercial HVAC, with refrigeration on the horizon.
When a refrigeration system has lost most of its refrigerant charge in a short period of time, the leak is probably significant and should be easy to find.
Now that the battle regarding ozone depleting potential (ODP) refrigerants has ended with the phaseout of CFCs and HCFCs, the fighting has shifted to issues related to the global warming potential (GWP) of the remaining and newly developing refrigerants.