World Refrigeration Day: Flammable refrigerants – a must for the environment

The World Refrigeration Day is meant to remind you of the importance of proper cooling. Numerous refrigerants ensure that food stays fresh for a long term. But not all refrigerants are the same.

For this reason, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) has taken the theme of the World Refrigeration Day “Cooling Matters” as an opportunity to take a closer look at the refrigerants and their importance. The importance and use of flammable refrigerants was discussed during a webinar on the topic “Flammable refrigerants: future-proof, environmentally friendly and sae in use”. These natural refrigerants have a low GWP and are therefore particularly environmentally friendly, as they emit few harmful emissions. Participants and speakers agreed that it is becoming increasingly important to use simple language when it comes to the meaning of cooling. It was also recalled that the Kigali shift towards HFC Phase Down under the Montreal Protocol focused on CO₂ emission reduction and that the current draft revision of the EU F-Gases Regulation aims at even stricter rules.

Our colleague Andreas Uitz, Head of Technical Customer Service Training at AHT, had the honour to discuss and present the topic flammable refrigerants in detail together with Harals Erös from the Austrian Association of Refrigeration Technology. In-depth insights into the aspects of flammability limits were given, but also the installation of new equipment was discussed, and inspection and maintenance/maintenance aspects were discussed. To sum up, flammable and natural refrigerants are future-proof, environmentally friendly and safe to use when safety aspects are taken into account and proper, safe and training practices are guaranteed.

For more than 17 years, AHT Cooling Systems has been dealing with natural refrigerants that are environmentally friendly. With R290 propane gas, the company uses the greenest refrigerant on the market, but it is also one of the flammable refrigerants. Therefore, AHT is aware of the importance of the above points and safety, maintenance, and inspection. In addition, R290 has a GWP of 0.02 over 100 years and 0.072 over 20 years, which is the best value currently available on the market.

The entire lecture, the numerous, exciting questions and the discussions can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyXT6uXlb0I