“Honeywell has developed a new refrigerant gas with a low Global Warming Potential (GWP) as an alternative to R-410A. The new gas was a disclosed at “The International Symposium on New Refrigerants and Environmental Technology 2012” held in Kobe, Japan, last year. It is an HFO mixed gas of which HFO1234ze is the major component. The name of the product is “Solstice™ L-41.”

Solstice™ L-41 is a refrigerant for residential and light commercial air conditioning and heat pump applications which can replace R-410A. The GWP of the new gas is its greatest advantage, being below 500 while that of R-410A is 2,088. It is lower than the 675 of R-32 which is another alternative to R-410A. Solstice™ L-41 can be used in existing equipment designs with minimal changes.

In the press release issued by Honeywell for global users on January 7th, Tom Morris, director of commercial development for Fluorine Products of the company, said “Honeywell has been working closely with leading equipment manufactures to optimize Solstice™ L-41 to meet the demanding requirements of both stationary air-conditioning and heat pump applications across a broad range of operating conditions. Solstice™ L-41 will allow these manufactures to offer more environmentally friendly air conditioning and heat pump systems to help address climate change.”

Honeywell is now constructing a new commercial manufacturing plant for HFO1234ze aiming at marketing it in full scale.”