Air Conditioning/Refrigeration Market

Air Conditioning/Refrigeration Market Domestic and Commercial Refrigeration

 

For domestic refrigeration applications such as home refrigerators, Forane® 134a is currently the preferred refrigerant for most manufacturers. Forane® 134a provides safe and efficient cooling and is used for typical home uses such as refrigerators, wine coolers and small freezers.
For Commercial Refrigeration, Arkema provides Forane® 134a, Forane® 404A and Forane® 507 for use in new applications Forane® 134a is used primarily in medium temperature (> 35 deg F) applications such as vending machines, cooling cases and ice cream servers. For low temperature applications, Forane 404A and Forane 507 provide efficient cooling in applications such as freezers, display cases and ice machines.
 
Comfort and Commercial Air Conditioning

Comfort air conditioning applications include a wide range of systems ranging from small room air conditioners to unitary systems serving the cooling requirements from residential needs through large commercial applications.
Currently, HCFC-22 is the refrigerant option employed by most manufacturers for use in residential and commercial air conditioning. Although HCFC-22 is the preferred refrigerant in these applications, it has a limited lifetime due to changing environmental regulations. These regulations prohibit using R-22 in new air conditioning equipment manufactured after 2010 forcing consumers to find alternative HFC refrigerants for use in new cooling equipment.

To accommodate the phaseout of R-22, Arkema is providing two(2) new HFC refrigerants which have no phaseout date and are environmentally friendlier than old HCFCs such as R-22.
 
Forane® 407C; a refrigerant blend of HFC-32, 125 and 134a has thermodynamic and performance properties similar to R-22. Although Forane® 407C’s properties are comparable to R-22, the overall performance is slightly less than R-22 in similar applications.

Forane® 410A, a refrigerant blend of HFC-32 and 125 has comparable properties and superior performance compared to R-22 and is already being used by most manufacturers as the refrigerating fluid in their newest units. Due to the superior properties of Forane® 410A and the upcoming phaseout of R-22, Forane® 410A is to be the leading replacement for R-22 in comfort air conditioning systems.

 

Building and Facility Air Conditioning

 

For centrifugal and screw chiller applications; CFC-11, CFC-12 and HCFC-22 were used in the past as the primary refrigerant fluids. Due to the mandated phaseout of CFCs and upcoming phaseout of R-22, Forane® 134a and R-123 are now being used as replacements in chiller applications. These refrigerants are currently being used effectively for new and retrofitted systems, providing safe and efficient cooling for these types of applications.

 

Transport Refrigeration

 

Refrigerated trucks and containers provide a unique challenge for cooling systems. These applications are used in extreme weather conditions requiring the refrigeration system to be flexible enough to operate in a wide variety of ambient conditions. For these applications, Arkema recommends using Forane® 134a, Forane® 404A or Forane® 507.

For medium temperature applications, Forane® 134a provides the best cooling capacity and efficiency through this particular temperature range. For low temperature applications, Forane® 404A and Forane®507 are the best option using HFC technology.

Using Forane® 134a, Forane® 404A and Forane® 507 in transport refrigeration provides the user with safe and efficient refrigerating fluids which can be purchased throughout the world from any of Arkema’s worldwide distributors.