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The world agreed to ban this dangerous pollutant — and it’s working |For the first time ever, researchers have detected a significant dip in atmospheric levels of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (wapo.st)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

OK.. where to start... So in a fix application with limited charge ( like a fridge) yup good to go.. yo get everything rated no problems there... isobuten for that application go for it..

Propane.. so if you ues in splits and heat pumps is a problem. ( yes they use them in gas plants but everything is explosion proof ). As you can't have limited charge depending on tonnage. And Propane has a very very nasty habit of settling to the lowest spot ( heavier than air) so if you develop a leak in your system your turning your house in to a bomb.

I do think CO2 ( some adjustments would need to be made and a buch more work for welders ) will work good on the commercial side. ( grocery store racks and the like. ) I am not sold on it residential.

would work better where most buildings already have cooling/heating loops with glycol. Witch in not north America.

And on a note for NG ( methane) the pressure is less than .25 a psi in a home and it is lighter than are so tends to float up and out if leaking.. and it smells.. ( do to an oderent. ) On that note the Propane that would be used in these types of system would not have that smell so even more of a worry.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Great, we're in agreement that self contained appliances can all use propane and isobutane then. That covers refrigerators, freezers, heat pump waters heaters (not split ones though, heat pump dryers, and a bunch of commercial refrigeration products like display cases at grocery stores. That was a good chunk of my comment.

What were seeing in e.g. Europe is monoblock heat pumps, where it's also self contained and not split and they use e.g. a glycol mix as to transfer heat between inside/outside. This has pros and cons of course, but it solves the propane danger for a split system with a larger charge by keeping the propane outside. The con is freezing climates where there is risk of pipes bursting during power outages, but that's manageable with failsafes. For true split systems, I agree that propane is problematic and CO2 is more promising. But we don't have to use split systems everywhere either. I'm not aware of any reason we can't add mercaptan to propane, unless it messes with the refrigerant characteristics. The low psi methane pipes can also easily make a bomb out of your house because the supply is unlimited, so I don't see that as more dangerous than a fixed (low) charge in a sealed system.

We can solve these issues though, and my point is that the work involved is worth it to eliminate the dangers of synthetic refrigerants. I appreciate your perspective, thanks for the conversation!