Refrigerant and lubricants
General Information
When choosing a refrigerant, dierent aspects must be taken into consideration:
• Legislation (now and in the future)
• Safety
• Application envelope in relation to expected running conditions
• Compressor capacity and eciency
• Compressor manufacturer recommendations & Guidelines
Additional points could inuence the nal choice:
• Environmental considerations
• Standardisation of refrigerants and lubricants
• Refrigerant cost
• Refrigerant availability
R410A
CH compressors are to be used with R410A refrigerant, with polyolester oil.
• R410A’s superior thermodynamical properties compared to R22 and R407C refrigerants allow for today’s massive –
and necessary – switch to high eciency systems.
• Zero Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP): R410A does not harm the ozone layer.
• Global warming potential (GWP): R410A shows a relatively high warming potential. However, the GWP index
denotes direct warming eect, which is relevant only in case of release to the atmosphere. A more accurate index
is T.E.W.I., for Total Equivalent Warming Impact, which takes into account indirect contributions due to running
energy costs.
• Because of the higher system eciency it allows to achieve, R410A is in this regard the best refrigerant.
• As a near-azeotropic mixture, refrigerant R410A behaves like an homogeneous substance, whereas other
zeotropic mixtures such as R407C and other blends suer a temperature glide during phase change that lessens
thermal eciency and makes them dicult to transfer from a container to another.
• Reduced refrigerant mass ow, permitted by a higher heat capacity, induce a lower sound level of the installation
as well as more compact and lighter systems.
Phased-out Refrigerant
Danfoss Commercial Compressors, along with the whole refrigeration and air conditioning industry, shares today’s
concern about the environmental issues that are ozone depletion, global warming and overall energy consumption.
Usual HCFCs refrigerant uids such as R22 are known to be implicated in these harmful phenomena, especially
ozone depletion due to their chlorinated content. These substances are scheduled to be phased-out from
production and use in coming years, in accordance with the international Montreal Protocol (1984). As a result, new
chlorine-free molecules have been recently developed and are now ready to replace former uids. Among those
refrigerants, the HFC blend R410A is admitted by a great majority of manufacturers to be the most promising in
terms of environmental impact, stability and eciency, and is already seen as the R22 replacement.
Table 2: Chemical properties
Table 3: Environmental impact
© Danfoss | Climate Solutions | 2022.09 AB236986442743en-000501 | 9
Scroll compressors, CH290 and CH485 | Refrigerant and lubricants
