ASHRAE Standard 34 is titled “Designation and Safety Classification of Refrigerants”. Among other things, this standard assigns each refrigerant a safety group classification based on the refrigerant’s flammability and toxicity. Refrigerants with low toxicity are given a rating of ‘Class A’, while refrigerants with higher toxicity are assigned ‘Class B’. According to Standard 34, refrigerants […]
What do the various refrigerant numbers mean? Believe it or not, there is a method to the madness. First of all, most refrigerants are “organic compounds,” which means they have one or more carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. The only series classified as “inorganic”, or lacking these bonds, is the 700-series, which includes ammonia, carbon dioxide, […]
When the refrigeration cycle was first developed, natural compounds were the only available refrigerants. Ammonia, carbon dioxide, and even sulfur dioxide were readily available and had useful thermodynamic properties. These refrigerants were great choices because they were easy to manufacture, readily available, and inexpensive to purchase. Unfortunately, due to the toxicity and flammability of these […]
Any refrigeration professional must understand the most common unit used in refrigeration, the “ton of refrigeration”. To properly explain what a “ton” is in a refrigeration context, studying refrigeration history is helpful. When the refrigeration vapor compression cycle was first invented, the most common application of a refrigeration system was making blocks of ice. Once […]
Ammonia Vanishes in this week’s edition of the Ammonia Week in Review… Firefighters Respond to Possible Ammonia Leak, No Injuries – L.A. County firefighters responded to a call about a possible ammonia leak at a building on Avenue Stanford in the Valencia Industrial Center Thursday evening, but were unable to determine whether there was a leak. […keep reading] […]
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