The key role of propane in a sustainable cooling sector.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Purohit, Pallav; Höglund-Isaksson, Lena; Borgford-Parnell, Nathan; Klimont, Zbigniew; Smith, Christopher J.
- Source
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 8/23/2022, Vol. 119 Issue 34, p1-3. 8p.
- Subject
- *PROPANE
*REFRIGERANTS
*REFRIGERATION & refrigerating machinery
*PROPANE industry
VIENNA Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (1985). Protocols, etc., 1987 Sept. 15
- Language
- ISSN
- 0027-8424
Split air conditioners (ACs) are the most used appliance for space cooling worldwide. The phase-down of refrigerants with high global warming potential (GWP) prescribed by the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol has triggered a major effort to find less harmful alternative refrigerants. HFC-32 is currently the most common refrigerant to replace HFC-410A in split ACs. The GWP of HFC-32 is about one-third that of HFC-410A but still considerably higher than that of a growing number of nonfluorinated alternatives like propane with a GWP of <1, which have recently become commercially available for split ACs. Here, we show that a switch to propane as an energy-efficient and commercially available low-GWP alternative in split ACs could avoid 0.09 (0.06 to 0.12) °C increase in global temperature by the end of the century. This is significantly more than the 0.03 (0.02 to 0.05) °C avoided warming from a complete switch to HFC-32 in split ACs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]