Life-Cycle Assessment of Refrigerants for Air Conditioners Considering Reclamation and Destruction

Fluorinated gases (F-gases) used as refrigerants in air conditioners have a significant global warming effect, so their release into the atmosphere must be minimized. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare environmental impact two treatment methods: reclamation destruction after refrigerant recovery. Plant data for R410A, R32, R134a, R22 were collected from Japan Europe evaluated terms greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy consumption, Life-cycle Impact assessment Method based on Endpoint modeling 3 (LIME3). As GHG results per kg showed that process emitted approximately 5.7 15.9 CO2-eq less than process. In addition, consumption found 82.5 250.6 MJ lower, and, LIME3, USD 0.40 0.97 lower compared with destruction. This trend same regardless type location, it quantitatively clarified smaller