What is the real impact of carbon dioxide?
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is classed as a ‘natural refrigerant’. However, this is not technically accurate as it is manufactured in a chemical plant. Therefore it is classed as artificial or ‘synthetic’ refrigerant. The real impact of carbon dioxide lies in the operating pressure and the infrastructure required to ensure it performs at a high standard.
The real impact of carbon dioxide
CO2 has a GWP of 1, which when compared to other refrigerant products, seems to be a climate friendly solution. Therefore the real impact of CO2 should be measured by the environmental impact of the infrastructure required to support it.
Comparing refrigerants by GWP alone is not enough when examining their real environmental impact. Total Equivalent Warming Impact (TEWI) refers to the total contribution to global warming by an element’s consumption of energy. Switching to a ‘natural’ refrigerant may have more of an environmental impact that first obvious.
A changing industry
Refrigerants are a key part of our day to day lives, used in our hospitals, cars, homes, and supermarkets. This makes it difficult to imagine a world without them. However, maintaining the highest standard of refrigerant solutions has its challenges. The largest one currently being being the environmental impact of the industry.
As the industry continues to evolve and adapt, Koura remains at the forefront of innovation. We’re committed to providing customers across a variety of industries worldwide with future proof solutions. For fifteen years, our ongoing research and development program has been a key focus, with significant investment and product development. Our goal is to ensure our company has a positive impact on the world we live in and plays a key role in supporting the evolution of the global cooling industry.
Our next-generation refrigerants
R-473A is the first of our next-gen refrigerants to launch, designed to achieve high performance with a significantly lower global warming potential (GWP) than existing refrigerants in ultra-low temperature cooling applications such as high value cold chains, vaccine storage, climate test chambers, transportation and other medical uses.
Whereas our LFR3 refrigerant is designed to have 15-20% more operating pressure and up to 20% more energy efficiency than CO2. Find out more about our next-gen range and contact our team to discuss samples and testing here.