At the recent COP28 meeting in Dubai, environmental problems and rising temperatures were discussed, which could lead to serious environmental consequences in the future. Pierfrancesco Fantoni, one of the most expert teachers at the Galileo Study Center, answers a question on environmental problems and the use of refrigerant gases.
In addition to fossil fuels, are refrigerant gases also polluting and harmful in this sense?
Many refrigerant gases used today, but fortunately not all, are capable of causing serious damage to the environment with regards to the so-called “greenhouse effect”, i.e. the rise in average temperatures and the consequent climate changes.
Among the most harmful substances we find hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants (HFCs) such as r410a, r407c, r404a, r134a whose use in the future must be increasingly reduced, for this reason, following the regulatory provisions issued by ‘European Union. Their impact on the environment is thousands of times more negative than that of carbon dioxide.
Other more recently appeared refrigerants, such as hydrofluoroolefins (HFO), appear to have much lower negative effects on the environment, in terms of the greenhouse effect caused.
Even so-called “natural” refrigerant gases (such as, for example, hydrocarbons) have very limited polluting effects.
Finally we mention ammonia (R717), the only refrigerant gas that has no negative effect in terms of increasing earth temperatures.
