The benefits of new air conditioning refrigerants

Nearly every home, office, private and public place makes use of air conditioners today. When installing an air conditioning unit, it is important to look at the SEER (Seasonal Energy Efficient Ratio). The SEER of an air conditioning unit is calculated by dividing the cooling capacity of the unit with the electrical input required to power it. The higher the SEER rating of the air conditioner, the more efficient the unit will be. This will result in lower electricity bills.

All air conditioners run on a refrigerant called Freon that helps cool the air. Presently the government is slowly phasing out the use of air conditioners that run on R-22 as it is an ozone depleting agent. By 2010, government will disallow the manufacture of air conditioners that use R-22. After 2009, all air conditioning units will be manufactured to run on R-410A, which is a non ozone depleting refrigerant. There are some manufacturers that are already selling air conditioners running on R-410A.

The production of air conditioning units that use R-22 will continue till 2020. After that all air conditioners using R-22 will be serviced with recycled R-22. Air conditioners using R-22 systems will not be able to be converted into R-410A systems. This is because the pressure used to run an R-410A system is almost twice as much as that used to run the traditional R-22 one. R-410A air conditioning units are environmentally friendly and these units and components are specially designed to take this kind of pressure.