By: Chris Mobley, Senior Regulatory Engineer, Codes and Regulatory Services, UL Solutions
Over the last few decades, R-134a has been one of the most common refrigerants for many applications, such as household refrigerators and automotive air conditioning. However, its use in new systems has been mostly eliminated over the last several years due to federal regulations related to its global warming potential (GWP).
A search on major online retailers for “R-134a refrigerant” will return top results for refrigerant canisters marked as “R-134a replacement” (or similar), but which do not actually contain R-134a refrigerant. Instead, these canisters often contain a hydrocarbon refrigerant, such as R-290 (propane) or R-600a (isobutane). The exact refrigerant is not always fully disclosed on the product packaging.
R-134a is designated as a safety class A1 refrigerant, which has a low heat of combustion and does not propagate flame at standard conditions. These hydrocarbons replacements are safety class A3, which are highly flammable and explosive.
The retrofit of an A3 refrigerant into a system designed for A1 refrigerants is hazardous. For example, refrigeration systems designed for A1 refrigerants can contain arcing and sparking components. These components will ignite a leak of A3 refrigerants causing a fire or explosion. Numerous field incident reports verify this hazard.
Additionally, the unauthorized retrofit is prohibited by the product certification, the manufacturer’s instructions, the model mechanical and fire codes, as well as federal regulations.
At this time, R-134a refrigerant is still available on the market for service of existing systems. Repair of these systems should be performed by competent service technicians using the correct refrigerant for which the system was designed and certified.
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