Refrigerant Gas Phase Out and Replacement in China

Refrigerant, also known as refrigerant or freon gas, is a medium used in various heat engines to complete energy conversion. These substances typically increase their power through reversible phase transitions, such as gas-liquid phase transitions. For example, steam in a steam engine and refrigerant in a refrigerator are both refrigerants.

According to the "2024 Market Share and Ranking Research Report of Leading Enterprises in the Global and Chinese Refrigerant Industry" released by QESC, refrigerants can be divided into various types such as ammonia, nitrogen, fluorine, water and hydrocarbons, among which fluorine refrigerants are currently the most common type. Fluorine-containing refrigerants have the characteristics of strong chemical stability and excellent thermodynamic properties, and are widely used in refrigerators, household air conditioners, automotive air conditioners and other refrigeration fields, and can also be used as plastic foaming agents in the polyurethane industry, electronic cleaning agents in the semiconductor industry and aerosols in fine chemicals.

Refrigerant is a traditional product in the fluorine chemical industry, and it is also one of the most important products in the fluorine chemical industry. Fluorine chemical industry refers to the chemical industry with fluorine-containing materials as the main products, mainly including fluorine-containing refrigerants, fluorine-containing polymer materials, fluorine-containing fine chemicals and other products. Fluorine chemical industry is known as the "gold industry" because of its high added value and application performance, and has become an important part of the national strategic emerging industry, which plays a key role in the restructuring of the manufacturing industry and product upgrading.

In recent years, China's fluorine chemical industry has developed rapidly, and the market size has shown a growth trend as a whole. According to the data, the scale of China's fluorine chemical market will reach 58.556 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 32.26% year-on-year.

At present, China has become the world's largest producer and marketer of fluorine chemicals. According to the data, from 2017 to 2022, the output of fluorine chemical products in China increased from 2.7716 million tons to 3.4689 million tons, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.59%; The demand increased from 2,415,500 tons to 2,956,100 tons, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.12%.

The phase-out of second-generation refrigerants in developed countries has been basically completed, and China is in the transition period from second-generation refrigerants to third-generation refrigerants

As a traditional product in the fluorine chemical industry, refrigerants first appeared in the 30s of the 19th century. However, in the early days, most of the products such as ether were flammable, toxic and chemically unstable, and their application was mainly limited to the industrial field. It was not until the 20-30s of the twentieth century that non-flammable and non-toxic HCFCs were used as refrigerants, that the process of commercial production and household use of refrigerants began, and it was also the beginning of a generation of refrigerant CFCs, namely "Freon".

Up to now, refrigerants have gone through four generations of refrigerant products, namely CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs and HFOs. Among them, the first-generation refrigerant has a high ODP value, that is, it has a huge damage to the ozone layer, and a high GWP value, its greenhouse effect is extremely significant, so it has been phased out in the world. The second-generation refrigerant has relatively little damage to the ozone layer, but it will lead to a certain greenhouse effect, which has been basically eliminated in developed countries in Europe and the United States, and China and other developing countries are in the phase-out period. The third-generation refrigerant has no damage to the ozone layer, and is gradually replacing HCFCs products in developing countries, and is in the stage of substantial expansion. However, the greenhouse effect is more significant, with the signing of the Kigali Amendment, the third generation of refrigerants will also gradually enter the accelerated phase-out period, and a small number of developed countries have begun to reduce the amount of use.