International. IIAR noted that its Refrigerant Evaluator Tool is a valuable resource as the Environmental Protection Agency phases out refrigerants with high global warming potential.
John Flynn, chair of the IIAR Education Committee, the committee responsible for creating the new tool, said refrigerant options outside of the natural refrigerant world have become more complex as a result of phase-outs, making the IIAR's recently released comparison tool a valuable resource for anyone trying to compare the performance and efficiency of different refrigerants.
"In the industrial refrigeration industry, most of our customers use natural refrigerants, but some use synthetic refrigerants, and those customers will have to look for new refrigerants," Flynn said. "The goal of this tool is for those people to find new refrigerants and help them evaluate their options."
Flynn said the IIAR tool includes information on natural refrigerants such as ammonia, CO2, propane and other hydrocarbons along with synthetic refrigerants.
"This tool allows anyone to compare natural and synthetic refrigerants and determine which refrigerants have the best qualities for a given facility," he said, adding that it "offers a lot of fact-based information to help end users and contractors quickly evaluate one refrigerant against another."
Factors that allow users to compare performance and efficiency include: the potential for ozone depletion, flammability, the types of lubricants needed, and the compressor's brake power per ton (a measure of how much energy should be fed into a system versus the output cooling benefit).
The IIAR Refrigerant Evaluation Tool displays refrigerant information on two screens. The first display displays information about individual refrigerants, while the second display allows for side-by-side comparison of up to three refrigerants.
The format helps a facility owner make decisions such as comparing safety system costs and installation costs or conducting an assessment of the total costs of installing and operating a cooling system with a particular refrigerant, Flynn said.
The IIAR Refrigerant Assessment Tool can be found here: https://refrigerantcomparison.com
