Which of the following refrigerants has the lowest global warming potential?

Due to F-Gas regulations and climate initiatives, the industry has had increasing pressure to reduce its environmental impact. While many have switched to more sustainable energy solutions, such as solar, wind and electric, the use of refrigerants is necessary for many applications to maintain air quality and temperature for uses such as food supply and medicine.

What is GWP?

Global Warming Potential (GWP) is heat which is absorbed by a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. The formula for measuring GWP was developed due to the vast range of chemicals which have a different level of impact on the environment, measured against the heat that would be absorbed by the same mass of carbon dioxide.

Why is reducing GWP important?

Global Warming and its impact on the environment is commonly referred to as climate change. The increasing average temperature on the planet directly results in rising sea levels, ecosystem changes and is the greatest cause of animal species extinction this century.

What can the industry do?

As a necessary gas to ensure cold chain systems keep running around the world, refrigerants do carry GWP. However, by investing in innovation of products and never settling for just enough to meet standards, the industry has produced future-proof solutions with low GWP to heavily cut the industry’s impact on the environment while keeping up with demand for food, medicine and transportation.

Innovation is a challenge due to the different applications of refrigerants. It is not a universal gas and each refrigerant must be fine-tuned to perform for its intended purpose. Koura has met this challenge head-on to produce its lowest GWP refrigerants to date in its latest development range.

Automotive

Koura’s Klea 134a refrigerant is used in over 20 million new cars each year, and Koura is the chosen partner for leading vehicle producers including Jaguar Land Rover, Ford and Toyota. Automotive manufacturers refuse to compromise on quality, which is why Koura’s lower GWP answer to R-134a, the current chosen refrigerant, must provide efficiency and performance.

To meet the needs of different vehicle manufacturers and forms of transport , Koura has developed two new next gen refrigerants.

Next-gen refrigerants

With a growing demand for greener transport, Koura is developing a refrigerant specifically for electric and hybrid vehicles. Our low GWP offering will offer car makers the potential to develop more efficient heating and cooling systems which can result in a range increase for users.

LFR3

Our next-gen refrigerant LFR3 has a wider range of applications. It is under evaluation in a diverse range of applications such as vehicle air-conditioning, transport refrigeration and heat pumps, especially those used for domestic hot water generation where R-744 (CO2) has been used because of its non-flammability. LFR3 is intended to deliver an energy efficiency improvement compared to R-744 of 15-20% and to be usable in technology developed for R-744.

Unitary systems

As commercial and residential building trends move towards larger structures, there is a greater need for air movement systems and thermal control that opening a window simply cannot meet, making unitary systems more commonplace in new builds especially.

High value and medicinal

Refrigerants are vital to ensure high value items and products that require specific temperature control such as medicines maintain their freshness. Currently, R23 is the most popular product on the market.

LFR5

To meet applications including high value cold chain, test chambers, medicinal and pharmaceutical, Koura has developed R-473A to offer a lower GWP alternative for R-23.

Not only does LFR5 have a much lower GWP than R23, but it is designed to outperform the gas in energy efficiency and cooling capacity as it remained effective up to -70°C. With a low glide and charge size reduction of up to 15 percent, it is the ideal answer to cutting the environmental impact of necessary operations.

If you’d like to learn more about Koura’s Klea development refrigerant range, get in touch with your regional sales representative for information and a free sample.