Company Expects New Family of Products will Reduce Greenhouse Gas Content of Refrigerants by 245 Million Tons CO2 Equivalent Worldwide by 2025
DuPont Fluorochemicals (DuPont) today announced the introduction of three new refrigerants in its more sustainable DuPont™ Opteon® family. These refrigerants have far lower global warming potential (GWP) than the products they are designed to replace and will enable compliance with a growing number of regulations that limit the use of high-GWP refrigerants.
To enable regulatory compliance, DuPont has developed a full portfolio of low-GWP, high-performance refrigerants for a wide variety of applications. The new Opteon® family is based on hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) technology and includes more than a dozen products that are in development or already commercialized.
DuPont is introducing three new low GWP products for commercial refrigeration under the names Opteon® XP40, Opteon® XP44 and Opteon® XP10. Opteon® XP40 is a flagship refrigerant that can effectively replace the refrigerant R-404A, which has one of the highest GWPs of the common HFCs and is extensively used in commercial refrigeration. In addition to providing more than 60 percent reduction in GWP, extensive testing has shown that Opteon® XP40 delivers superior energy efficiency compared with R-404A.
Opteon® XP44 is a lower GWP replacement for the refrigerant R-404A and has been designed specifically to meet the demanding operating conditions of transport refrigeration. Opteon® XP10 is a lower GWP replacement for R-134a for refrigeration and other applications.
DuPont has additional Opteon® products in its pipeline, including high-performance fluids for targeted applications such as chillers, high-temperature heat pumps and organic rankine cycles. The entire Opteon® family offers properties and performance that are close to the incumbent HFCs to allow a smooth and efficient transition to more sustainable products.
"We anticipate that our new family of products will reduce greenhouse gas content of refrigerants by some 245 million tons CO2 equivalent worldwide by 2025," said Thierry F.J. Vanlancker, president, DuPont Chemicals & Fluoroproducts. "The new Opteon® refrigerants enable the industry to meet regulatory demands without giving up efficient, safe and cost-effective refrigeration and air conditioning."
A number of regulatory drivers are demanding a transition away from hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) toward alternatives with much lower global warming potential. The European Union has passed regulations that drive this transition in commercial refrigeration and air conditioning as well as in automotive air conditioning. This summer the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules to limit the use of certain HFCs and announced a number of actions and agreements to accelerate the transition away from HFCs. In addition to such actions by specific governmental authorities, there is growing support for an amendment to the Montreal Protocol to create a framework for global action to phase down HFCs.
"Our new products will enable the air conditioning and refrigeration industry to comply with a number of climate change regulations that have been passed or are under development," said Kathryn K. McCord, global business director, DuPont Fluorochemicals. "We are offering solutions that not only meet new regulatory requirements, but also perform well against a range of performance, sustainability and safety criteria."
To date, DuPont has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to bring to market the most sustainable refrigerants with no ozone depletion potential and low global warming potential. The company and its suppliers have plans to invest hundreds of millions more in the next five years to bring online additional capacity of these more sustainable, high-performance products that serve a wide range of applications.
The first Opteon® product commercialized was Opteon® YF (HFO-1234yf), which has a GWP that is 99.9 percent lower than the refrigerant it replaces. DuPont is the leading industry supplier of HFO-1234yf. The company also has announced plans for the world's first commercial facility of HFO-1336mzz, which improves energy efficiency in a wide range of refrigeration and foam additive applications.
DuPont – one of the first companies to publicly establish environmental goals more than 20 years ago – has broadened its sustainability commitments beyond internal footprint reduction to include market-driven targets for both revenue and research and development investment. The goals are tied directly to business growth, specifically to the development of safer and environmentally improved new products for key global markets.
