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 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.