REFRIGERANTS
you will pay will be much higher than it is today. Each producer and quota holder is going to have considerably less quota to sell and they will favour lower GWP refrigerants as they can sell more of them. Therefore, you would assume the only companies using R404A will be those who have no alternative or those prepared to pay extremely high prices.
Quick solution
When a system loses some or all of it charge of R404A, don’t top up with R404A but convert the system to one of the alternatives described below. The more R404A that is replaced this year, the less CO2
equivalent tonnes will be used up next year. Any that is recovered can be reclaimed for future use.
Pressure on other refrigerants The slow move away from R404A has also ramped up the pressure on other refrigerants such as R410A. However, there are no conversion options for existing R410A systems, so the replacement of R410A in new equipment will be driven by the equipment manufacturers. The market is already seeing the introduction of R32 in small charge equipment and this can be expected to grow. The quota reduction in 2018 is going to need all the help it can get from the new equipment sector.
R404A alternatives
There is a whole range of low GWP alternatives for new equipment: carbon dioxide for supermarkets, ammonia for larger industrial systems, hydrocarbons for very small charge hermetic equipment and A2L refrigerants once compressor approvals are given. All these are for new equipment only and they are not retrofi t options for the existing bank of HFC equipment. The lower GWP HFC and HFO blends are able to be used in new and existing equipment making the use of current design equipment possible. Two non-fl ammable products with the lowest GWP are R448A and R449A. Both are HFOs containing blends with GWPs just below 1400. Both have very similar performance characteristics and give reduced energy use compared to R404A. These two refrigerants are going to be the mainstay of the R404A conversion and replacement programme because of the very nature of the F-gas quota restrictions. Conversion to either is relatively straight forward, although attention needs to be paid to adjusting the expansion device and allowing for glide. The most likely reason for choosing one or the other is price and availability from your chosen supplier. Case studies exist in a wide range of applications across commercial and industrial applications.
Lincolnshire Co-op running on R449A For small hermetic systems, R452A is more likely to be used for both new and existing systems as it is the refrigerant of choice for Tecumseh, Embraco and Danfoss in their hermetic compressors where they need a very close match to R404A, with discharge temperature almost the same as R404A. Tecumseh does not approve
R448A and only approves R449A for some applications.
Due to its GWP being higher than other alternatives, the use of R452A should be restricted to those applications where other lower GWP alternatives cannot be used. R407F has been around a lot longer than R448A and R449A and has approvals from many semi-hermetic compressor manufacturers. It is more energy effi cient than R404A and is currently lower in price than both R448A and R449A, but its GWP is higher and it has higher discharge temperatures which may need additional cooling for low temperature applications. It is not approved by most of the small hermetic compressor manufacturers mentioned above. With the need to be lower in GWP, R407F and R407A may not be the best options for new conversions.
Two other alternatives exist on the market, R442A and R407H, but neither are approved by compressor manufacturers and both have discharge temperatures close to R407F.
Reclaimed R404A The fi nal piece in the jigsaw is the use of recovered and reclaimed R404A. This product is quota free and can be used through to 2030; the only catch is that to get reclaimed R404A, systems need to be converted or replaced. By converting systems, the R404A recovered during the conversion process can be sent back for reclamation and re-used elsewhere in systems that are harder to convert or may only need to be kept going before replacement in the next 12-18 months.
With the choice of paying ever increasing prices for R404A with no guarantee of being able to get product, versus converting to alternatives that are now cheaper than R404A, both the price and the time is right to get on and make the switch. Meeting 2018 quota restrictions will depend on how successful the industry has been at reducing its need for R404A and R507.
Hydratech
www.acr-news.com SpecialistFluid Solutions August 2017 39
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