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 the environmental impact of two treatment methods: reclamation and destruction...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2023-01, Vol.15 (1), p.473
Main Authors: Yasaka, Yoshihito, Karkour, Selim, Shobatake, Koichi, Itsubo, Norihiro, Yakushiji, Fumiaki
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air conditioners
Air conditioning
Air quality management
Carbon dioxide
Chlorofluorocarbons
Climate change
Comparative analysis
Data recovery
Destruction
Developing countries
Emissions
Energy consumption
Environmental aspects
Environmental impact
Environmental impact analysis
Evaluation
Gases
Global warming
Global warming potential
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Industrialized nations
LDCs
Life cycle assessment
Manufacturing
Methods
Reclamation
Refrigerants
Transportation services
Waste management
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary: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 the environmental impact of two treatment methods: reclamation and destruction after refrigerant recovery. Plant data for R410A, R32, R134a, and R22 were collected from Japan and Europe and evaluated in terms of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy consumption, and the Life-cycle Impact assessment Method based on Endpoint modeling 3 (LIME3). As for GHG emissions, the results per kg of used refrigerant showed that the reclamation process emitted approximately 5.7 to 15.9 kg CO2-eq less than the destruction process. In addition, the energy consumption was found to be 82.5 to 250.6 MJ lower, and, for LIME3, the results were found to be USD 0.40 to 0.97 lower for the reclamation compared with the destruction. This trend was the same regardless of the refrigerant type and location, and it was quantitatively clarified that the environmental impact was smaller for the reclamation process than for the destruction process.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su15010473