Overall Most Environmently friendly gas

[Latte]

Evening all,

Has anyone looked at the overall picture when it comes to gas. There are now numerous options, all of which from what i can see have draw backs. What direction Should we be going, Here are some of my thoughs. please post to tell me i am wrong.

CO2 - With all other aspect of industry we are trying to reduce out Co2 emmissions, why therefore should refrigeration be different and use more of it.

R290/ Care Range - Seems to me everytime you have a blocked condenser, the compressors cook, causing more to be replaced.

R134a - Mr Leaky Enough said

Ammonia - Too Risky to put in confined buildings (Supermarkets etc)

I Dont have an answer, just wanted to open the debate

Regards

Fatboy

[nike123]

I would say "bring back R22" and keep with adopted practice for the today "green gases" (recovery, reclaim, commissioning control and testing of equipment, de-commissioning procedures, education about environment and best handling procedures etc...)!

[US Iceman]

I would say "bring back R22" and keep with adopted practice for the today "green gases" (recovery, reclaim, commissioning control and testing of equipment, de-commissioning procedures, education about environment and best handling procedures etc...)!

I agree with this. But in doing so the laws should be more restrictive to who can purchase the refrigerant. I think the F gas directive helps in this regard (based on what I know about that).

R-22 is a good refrigerant. It has a long history and people understand it (and the oil issues).

CO2 is a good refrigerant and although it is a green house gas it is recovered from the atmosphere. Which is not the same as generating new CO2. It is a high pressure gas so it's use will require additional training and experience for the service personnel.

Ammonia is a very good refrigerant, but because of the smell you will find it difficult to be acceptable for applications other than very large systems (away from people).

[paul_h]

R22 is still widely used here. Does the a/c and refrigeration job well. The main brand a/cs are r410a, but the cheap made in china a/cs are still r22.
R22 was used here on split systems until 2004, so most of the units I work on now are r22 since I repair out of warranty units.
When r134a came out, a lot of commercial refrigeration manufacturers moved from r12 to r22 instead, though no units are made for it since r404a/r507 came out, there's still plenty old stuff around.
It's cheap, lower pressure, more efficent, but due to be phased out in 2012
Expect a lot of units in the rubbish tip. So much for the enviroment, the landfill needed will be massive.
edit: oh and leak detecting is easy, a bit of nitrogen and r22, the halide torch will find it dead easy in coolrooms and fridge cabinets. You just have to walk into the room or put the hose through the door to know whether it's worth your time to disasemble the indoor coil.

[Chunk]

Bring back r13b1,if you want a nasty gas,this is my arch enemy.
When coming up through my apprenticeship,which wasnt that long ago,all i was working with was 12,22 and 502 but now there are so many of them.
I have on my van,22,408,404,134,409,422,407 and the lovely 410 and to be honest when you work with so many all i think about is what would happen if my van went up in flames,and what a lovely concoction that would be

[taz24]

All green house gases are compared to Co2.
Co2 has the bench mark figure of 1 and all others are compared to that.

1 kg of Co2 released is 1 kg into the atmospher.
1 kg of R134a into the atmospher = the equivalent 1400 kg's of Co2.

Nearly all the Co2 that is in use is a by product of the brewery trade.

As for the best refrigerant I like R22.

Cheers taz.

[NH3LVR]

Bring back r13b1,if you want a nasty gas,this is my arch enemy.

I used to work on small, portable, blast freezers using r13b1.
Take a Mycom "A" machine that would normally use 50 Horsepower and put 100HP on it. Lots of capacity in a small portable engine room-on the cheap.
Oh yes-buy a new crankshaft every year or two.

Then 13b1 went away and we installed bigger compressors and r-22 on the units. Which worked-except the distributer tubes were a little large and they tended to overfeed at the end of the cycle.
One company built very small blast freezers using 13b1 and automobile air condintioning compressors. I asked the salesmaen how long they lasted. He said "awhile, but we give you a couple extras".

[The MG Pony]

R-290, can't beat it for its pressure range, just no halide tortches

[Latte]

1 kg of Co2 released is 1 kg into the atmospher.
1 kg of R134a into the atmospher = the equivalent 1400 kg's of Co2.

Cheers taz.

Thanks Taz, That was the information i was looking for.

Regards

Fatboy

[NoNickName]

The most eco friendly refrigerant is R718. No match.

[monkey spanners]

R718....Dangerous stuff that! I drunk some once by accident, was touch and go for a while!

[taz24]

R718....Dangerous stuff that! I drunk some once by accident, was touch and go for a while!

Where did you get it from.
Because apparently there are two source's for R718 one comes ot of a bottle and the other can be got from a steel valve thing installed at some upmarket premises

taz

[monkey spanners]

I think the main problem came from mixing products from different manufactures...Possibly i may have 'overcharged' the system, it was out of action for a week afterwards

Jon