3G Refrigerants: When the dust settles, the booming day arrives (Part I)

You who are blowing air conditioners at the moment may not imagine the recent frenzied pursuit of refrigerants in the capital market.

In the past two years, a strange phenomenon has occurred in the refrigerant industry. Companies in the industry are desperately trying to expand production. What is even more incredible is that the more these companies lose money, the more they expand production, with no regard for economic interests. Thanks to everyone's "unremitting efforts", the price of refrigerants has fallen all the way. The picture below shows the market of a refrigerant (R134a). In just half a year, the price of the refrigerant has dropped by more than half.

Naturally, these companies are not fools. They do not pursue short-term profits, but of course pursue longer-term returns for the future - quotas. 2022 is the last year for the three generations of refrigerant quotas to be locked. If you miss this year, goodbye will only be a dream. When all the dust settles, it is time for the industry to harvest.

1. Refrigerants can cause global warming

Refrigerants, also known as refrigerants, can be used in the system to achieve cooling (and also heating) mainly through phase change in the system, and are widely used in household air conditioners, refrigerator freezers, automotive air conditioners and other fields. With it, you can sit in an air-conditioned room and eat iced watermelon on a hot summer day.

Fluorinated refrigerants are the most commonly used refrigerants, accounting for more than half of them.

Fluorine-containing refrigerants have many advantages, such as high refrigeration efficiency, stable properties, safety and non-toxicity, so they have been widely used for a long time. However, in the middle of the last century, scientists discovered a huge hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. The destruction of the ozone layer will bring huge disasters to humans and other living things. Later, it was discovered that the hole in the ozone layer was associated with the use of fluorinated refrigerants. Even more frightening is that one refrigerant molecule can destroy 100,000 ozone molecules, a discovery that shocked the world. Interestingly, Thomas Mikili Jr., the scientist who invented Freon, was awarded the title of "the single most harmful single organism to the earth's environment".

As a result, people began to improve refrigerants, hoping to reduce their harm to the earth. Today, four generations of refrigerants have evolved, as shown in the table below. The first and second generation refrigerants seriously damage the ozone layer. Developed countries have basically eliminated them, and developing countries are gradually reducing production. The third generation refrigerant is the current mainstream. Although it will not destroy the ozone layer, its GWP (global warming) potential) is high, which means that it will cause global warming, which is being gradually controlled. Although the fourth-generation refrigerants are environmentally friendly, they have low refrigeration efficiency, poor safety, and high production costs. Overall, although there are many varieties of refrigerants, none of them are perfect, and there are more or less faults (but you can't use them).

To be continued...