A chemical that is used in refrigeration systems (like air conditioning units) is usually called as refrigerant. This chemical has crucial function to help air conditioners to remove or beat the heat and relocate the heat on the outside of the indoor rooms. The other applications that use it are industrial cooling machines, automobile or car air conditioners, etc. Its phase usually from liquids to gases and finally back to the liquids again. When it is changing to gas from liquid (evaporating process) then it will absorb the amount heat of the nearby area and eventually this process leads to the cooling effect of heat transfer. Today, there are two popular types of refrigerant for air conditioning; R-22 and R410a refrigerant.

There are available some types of refrigerants and usually to distinguish those types, they usually are named with “R-variable” in the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning) industry. Some popular of them at this time are R134a, R-22, R-505, etc. Each type has unique characteristics and the variety of chemical make-ups and different properties. Therefore, we can find some types of them that only can work in low pressures while other types could work in high pressures. In addition, according to ‘Montreal Protocol’ in the 1987, the use of R-22 (CFC-s or chlorofluorocarbons) will be significantly limited due to its bad effect that can deplete the ozone layer. Therefore, the use of this type is ideally only allowed for special servicing existing applications in the future. And some types that are purposed to replace the R-22 refrigerant 9 which theoretically friendlier to the environment) are R134a (for residential and automotive air conditioning units), R-11 refrigerant is for commercial purposes, and ammonia that usually for industrial equipments.

# R-22

Like mentioned before, this refrigerant is also familiar known as HCFC-22. It has been used for more than forty years. Unfortunately it can be categorized as greenhouse gas that also result HFC-23 (by-product) that can significantly contribute bad-effect of ozone depletion and global warming processes. Therefore there are many countries (including the U.S) all around world have agreement to reduce the domination of R-22 completely in 2010 (according to Montreal Protocol)!

# R410a

It is the bright future of refrigerant technology that not only prioritizes friendly to our environment (like written before) but also (in line with technological development) it is also trusted can provide the greater efficiency performance that eventually so helpful to cut the energy consumption for each year. Sometimes the new technology is accompanied with some doubts! Therefore, there are some doubt questions and points that should be anticipated or answered as well to guarantee a new technology can be successfully accepted, such as; reliable or not, stability or not, how about the economical value, etc.

#Challenges on making R410a more popular than R-22!

Unfortunately the new eco-friendly technology of R410a air conditioning refrigerant also has cons that should be addressed quickly by engineers. It has higher pressure while operating at normal temperatures! Therefore the refrigerant system must be buffed up! It also requires different oils that make it cannot be combined with the existing of R-22 air conditioner. Its oil tends absorb the moisture easily. This is one of reasons why a technician or HVAC contractor perform evacuation when dong the installation of a new unit.

# Conclusion

Overall, R410a air conditioning refrigerant is more recommended if you want to get the better investment in the future. They offer green alternative technology that not contain chlorine or non CFC refrigerant, energy bill saving in long term, and can work or cool your room quickly or even faster than R-22! In addition, although their initial costs could two to three times higher than the older R-22 models at this time, but this situation could change in the early of the phase out period in 2010! And the last, the successful buying is always choose the product that is not destined to get shopworn, isn’t it?

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More tags: which gas is better than r22, air conditioning refrigerant types, types of refrigerants in air conditioning

Tags: air conditioning refrigerant, r-22, r410a