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Refrigerants on their adventurous way to low GWP

On April 1, a law went into effect to cut down chlorofluorocarbon emission, setting the direction of the regulations regarding chlorofluorocarbon. Affected by this regulation, refrigerant producers, mainly the 3 major refrigerant producers, have started to conduct PR activities regarding new gases which can also cope with soon to appear regulations. They have also been sending out samples.

For refrigerants for home air conditioners, Daikin Industries has already taken the lead over other companies by coming out with its R32, enabling it to capture the market. The next target coming up is a refrigerant for packaged air conditioning, and freezers and refrigerators for business use. One is an alternative gas to R410A and the other to R404A respectively. A battle is heating up for gas which cools.

The market for R32 is headed toward 3,500 tons for this year

The major feature of the law to restrict the emission of chlorofluorocarbon is that it sets the GWP targets for each refrigerant and the year by which the target is to be reached. As for the targets, among the numerous refrigerants which show the upper limit for the GWP, the refrigerants which are attracting note in particular are R410A and R404A.
The reason for this is that among refrigerants, R410A forms the largest market. The target is to be reached by 2018 which is the sooner date, and therefore there is a pressing need for changing over. One more gas, R404A, has a GWP of 3,920 which is a considerably high figure among existing refrigerants. The target is to be reached by 2025 so that comparatively some time has been set aside for this to be reached. However, the time for the changeover to new refrigerants is apparently being brought ahead to reduce the burden of warming.

(More information can be read in The Gas Review No.407)

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