Domestic and Commercial Refrigeration

For Domestic Refrigeration applications, such as home refrigerators, Forane® 134a is currently the preferred refrigerant for most manufacturers. Forane® 134a provides safe and efficient cooling and is utilized for typical home uses, such as refrigerators, wine coolers, and small freezers.

For Commercial Refrigeration, Arkema provides Forane® 134a, Forane® 404A, and Forane® 507 for use in new applications. Forane® 427A and 407A is recommended for R-22 retrofitting. Forane® 134a is used primarily in medium temperature (> 35 deg F) applications, such as vending machines, cooling cases, and ice cream servers. For low temperature applications, Forane 404A and Forane 507 provide efficient cooling in applications such as freezers, display cases, and ice machines.

Comfort air conditioning applications include a wide range of systems, from small room air conditioners to unitary systems, serving the cooling requirements from residential needs through large commercial applications.

Currently, HCFC-22 is the refrigerant option employed by most manufacturers in residential and commercial air conditioning. Although HCFC-22 is the preferred refrigerant in these applications, it has a limited lifetime, due to changing environmental regulations. These regulations prohibit using HCFC-22 in new air conditioning equipment manufactured after 2010, forcing consumers to find alternative HFC refrigerants for use in new cooling equipment.

To accommodate the phaseout of HCFC-22, Arkema is providing several new HFC refrigerants, which have no phaseout date and are more environmentally sustainable than HCFCs, such as HCFC-22.

Forane® 407C, a refrigerant blend of HFC-32, 125, and 134a, has thermodynamic and performance properties similar to HCFC-22. Although Forane® 407C's properties are comparable to HCFC-22, the overall performance is slightly less than HCFC-22 in similar applications.

Forane® 427A, a refrigerant blend of HFC-32, 125, 134a, and 143a, also has thermodynamic properties similar to HCFC-22. Forane® 427A works well with residual mineral oil and is suggested for retrofits of HCFC-22 in air conditioning systems.

Forane® 410A, a refrigerant blend of HFC-32 and 125, has comparable properties as well as superior performance compared to HCFC-22 and is already being used by most manufacturers as the refrigerating fluid in their newest units. Due to the superior properties of Forane® 410A and the upcoming phaseout of HCFC-22, Forane® 410A is the leading replacement for HCFC-22 in comfort air conditioning systems.

Building and Facility Air Conditioning

For centrifugal and screw chiller applications, CFC-11, CFC-12, and HCFC-22 were used in the past as the primary refrigerant fluids. Due to the mandated phaseout of CFCs and the upcoming phaseout of HCFC-22, Forane® 134a and R-123 are now being used as replacements in chiller applications. These refrigerants are currently being used effectively for new and retrofitted systems, providing safe and efficient cooling for these types of applications.

Refrigerated trucks and containers provide a unique challenge for cooling systems. These applications are used in extreme weather conditions requiring the refrigeration system to be flexible enough to operate in a wide variety of conditions. For these applications, Arkema recommends using Forane® 134a, Forane® 404A, or Forane® 507.

For medium temperature applications, Forane® 134a provides the best cooling capacity and efficiency through this particular temperature range. For low temperature applications, Forane® 404A and Forane®507 are the best options using HFC technology.

Using Forane® 134a, Forane® 404A, and Forane® 507 in transport refrigeration provides the user with safe and efficient refrigerating fluids, which can be purchased throughout the world from any of Arkema's worldwide distributors.