Jul . 05, 2024 17:08 Back to list

How To Distinguish Inferior Refrigerants

Poor-quality refrigerants will affect the system's operating performance and stability, and more seriously, will cause damage to system components and compressors. It is recommended to use the following methods to identify whether it is a poor-quality refrigerant:

Whether the refrigerant produced by a regular manufacturer is purchased through regular channels. If the price is significantly lower than the market price, you should be highly vigilant.

If you have the conditions for testing, it is recommended to test the purity and acidity of the refrigerant before using it. Refrigerants with test results significantly lower than the industry standard are not recommended for use. Note: The purity of qualified R22 refrigerant should be greater than 99% (the purity of high-quality refrigerant is greater than 99.8%), and the acidity (in terms of HCL) should be less than 0.0001.

If you do not have the conditions to test the refrigerant, it is recommended that you perform a simple inspection on the refrigerant before using it. The simple inspection method can be:

[1] Invert the refrigerant tank and release a small amount of refrigerant onto a piece of white paper. If there are obvious impurities or liquid water on the white paper, it means that the refrigerant is of poor quality and is not recommended for use;

[2] Connect a pressure gauge to test the refrigerant bottle pressure, and check whether the pressure in the bottle is within the normal range by comparing it with the refrigerant temperature and pressure characteristic table. If the pressure is obviously abnormal, it is not recommended for use.

And when the refrigerant is half used, you can test the pressure in the bottle again. For a single-component refrigerant such as R22, the two measured bottle pressure values should be very close. However, for inferior refrigerants, which are usually mixed with multiple components, the bottle pressure will usually be greatly different after the refrigerant in the bottle is used due to the change in the proportion of the components. If you encounter such a phenomenon, it is recommended to stop using the refrigerant immediately and discharge the refrigerant that has been filled into the system to avoid polluting the system.

During the system commissioning and operation phase, if the following abnormalities are found:

[1] The system refrigeration capacity is obviously insufficient and no other abnormalities are found after inspection, attention should be paid to the refrigerant;

[2] The system dryer filter or expansion valve is clogged, and the clogged material is yellow-brown waxy or black sludge-like foreign matter, attention should be paid to the refrigerant;

[3] High or low pressure or temperature abnormalities occur during system operation, or the system balance pressure is abnormal when the system is shut down (refer to the refrigerant temperature and pressure characteristic table), attention should be paid to the refrigerant.

When these abnormalities occur, it is recommended to extract refrigerant from the system for purity testing to eliminate the risk of inferior refrigerant. During this period, it is recommended to empty the refrigerant on the compressor side or release the refrigerant in the entire system to avoid potential inferior refrigerant from contacting the compressor and damaging the compressor.

Once it is found that the unit components or compressor failure is caused by chemical contamination caused by inferior refrigerant, the units that have used refrigerant from the same source in the site (even if the unit can still work normally) need to replace the refrigerant. Because the effects of harmful chemical components in inferior refrigerants are sometimes slow, they may cause system failure after a long period of use.

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