Finding non-fluorinated alternatives to fluorinated gases used as refrigerants

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and so-called hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) are used as refrigerants in air conditioning, refrigeration, chillers, heat pumps and devices for dehumidification and drying. However, many HFCs, including R-134a and R-125, have a high global warming potential and some of the HFCs and HFOs degrade atmospherically and form persistent degradation products. Thus, there is an urgent need to replace fluorinated refrigerants with non-fluorinated working fluids to avoid direct emissions due to leakage, incorrect loading or removal. It is important, however, also to select refrigerants with high efficiencies to avoid indirect CO2 emissions due to a (too) high energy consumption during the use phase. The present study investigates the available non-fluorinated alternatives to fluorinated refrigerants and shows that a transition to non-fluorinated refrigerants, in general, is possible and has happened in many sectors already. Technically, there are only slight barriers to overcome to replace fluorinated refrigerants in almost all newly developed systems conforming to existing standards. Additionally, we show that alternatives are available even for some use cases for which derogations have been proposed in the PFAS restriction proposal and suggest making these derogations more specific to support bringing the use of non-fluorinated refrigerants into practice.