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Refrigerant Gas Management: Why Organizations with AC/HVAC Systems Must Care

By Daniel Stouffer

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 09Jan2009 Word count: 733 Viewed: 993 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Refrigerants are used in commercial facilities such as office buildings, hospitals and warehouses to maintain the climate and air quality. Refrigerant management includes maintaining the air conditioning (AC) or heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) units often used to maintain the environment in these buildings.

Refrigerants have been around for many years. These gases are basically condensed under pressure to obtain chilled air. Through the repetitive evaporating and condensing actions of these refrigerant gases, they are able to pull excess heat out of the air and moderate the environment within buildings.

In the 1970s, scientists discovered that certain refrigerants such as Freon and many others in the HCFC category could cause spontaneous, chemical reactions and destroy the delicate ozone layer protecting Earth´s atmosphere. Developments in mandatory refrigerant usage and new regulations were passed to restrict the methods of manufacturing and the ways that refrigerants could be used in common AC or HVAC systems. Refrigerant gases could no longer be deliberately released to escape or vented into the atmosphere.

There are certain gases called Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) that occur naturally in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide, methane, water vapor and ozone itself, but other gases like hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are artificially pumped into the atmosphere by industrial processes and leaking refrigeration systems. Because these are not naturally occurring and the amounts vented are very high, damage to the ozone layer happens as these fluorinated gases degrade into different chemical compounds. One might ask how exactly do refrigerants gases like HCFCs and CFCs destroy the ozone layer.

When refrigerants escape and drift up into the atmosphere, they go through chemical changes which react to the ultraviolet (UV) sunlight. This disintegrates the CFC molecules and rids the molecule of its chlorine atom. The free chlorine atom now reacts with the ozone (O3) molecules in the atmosphere and changes it to oxygen (O2). Oxygen isn't able to filter out the UV radiation like ozone could. This allows the strong and dangerous ultraviolet (UV) radiation to come through the atmospheric layers and down to the earth. For this reason as well as the greenhouse warming caused by some refrigerant gases, it is important that refrigerant gases are contained and not allowed to escape into the atmosphere.

Regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitor manufacturing plants and commercial or industrial buildings and the related AC or HVAC systems they contain to make sure the refrigerant gases are not escaping into the atmosphere. Many systems, especially those over 2,000 pounds of refrigerant, are equipped with a gas monitors and auto detection technology to assure the accuracy of the system and its integrity to contain the refrigerants.

Compliance regulations make businesses monitor for system leaks and require repair of any damaged AC or HVAC systems within 14 days. Follow up integrity checks are also necessary with detailed service records and all refrigerant usage needing to be maintained for up to 5 years.

The European Union has been at the top of the list for regulating greenhouse gases and refrigerants. Regular inspections of AC/HVAC systems are made to monitor for leakages. As with the US EPA, inspectors check records for recovery systems. Refrigerants must be recovered in closed systems so that the gases don't escape into the atmosphere.

The EPA will issue fines to commercial facilities that violate the regulations or are not complying with refrigerant tracking and monitory reporting. In the early 1990s, Section 608 of the U.S Clean Air Acted certification is required for HVAC technicians to fix or maintain systems or to buy more than 20 pounds of refrigerants to recharge the systems.

The US Clean Air Act is a regulation that spells out the EPA's role in air quality, especially in protecting the ozone layer and the tracking and reporting of Greenhouse Gases. The Act is maintained by the House of Representatives. The Clean Air Act has had changes made in the 1990s and again in 2008 that are more stringent than when it was first written over a decade ago.

New legislation being writing and being passed in early 2009 and 2010 will further restrict refrigerant gas usage, reporting, and phase out of damaging HCFCs. With continued tracking of carbon emissions and the pending mandatory reporting of carbon, organizations of all sizes maintaining refrigeration systems with more than 50 pounds of refrigerant gas will need to maintain detailed service records.

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