R-452B Refrigerant Fact & Info Sheet

R-452B is a hydrofluroolefin (HFO) refrigerant, known to be one of the most energy efficient replacements of R-410A. The refrigerant is a zeotropic blend consisting of a mixture of three refrigerants, R-32, R-125, and R-1234yf. As you know, HFOs are a new class of refrigerants set to replace refrigerants with a high global warming impact.

Technicians that want to recover or charge this refrigerant into a heating and cooling system may want to understand the qualities, benefits, limitations, and the best way to handle this refrigerant. If that’s you, here’s a comprehensive article on R-452B. We are going to highlight all these in this article, and compare it to other refrigerants like R-33 and R-410A.

Fact sheet

Here’s a comprehensive fact sheet for this refrigerant.

R-452B PT Chart

While charging or recovering a refrigerant from any system, a technician normally uses a pressure temperature chart to identify the best method to complete the process without damaging the components of the system.

The chart contains information on the refrigerant’s pressure at specific temperature levels. It also helps to:

• Set coil pressure to ensure that the refrigerant produces a desired temperature
• Check superheat amount above saturated vapor condition at the evaporator outlet
• Examine subcooling amount below saturated liquid condition at the condenser

Each refrigerant has a specific PT chart that it uses since every refrigerant is different. Here’s the detailed PT chart for R-452B.

What is R-452B?

R-452B is a zeotropic blend developed by Honeywell and Chemours. The blend consists of two HFC compounds and one HFO. The components include 67% of R-32, 7% of R-125, and 26% of R-1234YF. It’s a HFO refrigerant known to be the most preferred replacement of R-410A.

R452B Compared to R410A

R-410A is one of the most popular HFC refrigerants. It came into the market to replace R22, which was a refrigerant with a high ozone depleting potential. R410A has been useful in various applications including residential and commercial air conditioning, industrial refrigeration, chillers, and centrifugal compressors.

Though the refrigerant had superb qualities that made it suitable for all these applications, the problem with R-410A was one. It has a high global warming potential of around 2,088. The risk of using this refrigerant on a long-term basis was quite high, which means manufacturers had to find a replacement after countries signed the Kigali Amendment.

R452B is a suitable R-410A replacement because it has a low global warming potential of around 700, which is significantly low. Besides this, both refrigerants have similar matching qualities such as close boiling points (R-452B has a boiling point of -51 °C while R-410A’s boiling point is at -48.5 °C). Hence, it can be a suitable drop-in replacement for R-410A.

Common applications of R-452B

• Used in domestic air conditioning units such as window units, portable ACs, ducted ACs, mini splits, and multi-splits
• Industrial refrigeration
• DX (Direct Expansion) chillers
• Packaged terminal air conditioners

What Are the Benefits of Using R-452B

Apart from having a lower GWP than R410A, what other benefits does the R452B refrigerant bring to any heating and cooling system?

1. Better Performance

When considering which refrigerant to use, manufacturers have to consider its impact to the system. This is because each refrigerant in the market has different thermodynamic properties, which include pressure, temperature, specific volume, enthalpy, and entropy.

Some refrigerants, when added to the system, can lower the coefficient of performance of the system (COP), which is the amount of energy needed to cool or heat a system.

In the case of R452B, most experts agree that using this refrigerant increases the performance of your system by up to 5% when added to a system that used R410A previously. Meaning, the heating or cooling equipment becomes better.

Other qualities that lead to increased performance are:

• It has a low boiling point: making it suitable for low and medium refrigeration applications, especially in larger industrial units
• R-452B is chemically stable: It doesn’t decompose under extreme pressures and temperatures within the refrigeration system

3. Low Toxicity

One quality that your refrigerant of choice needs to have is low toxicity and low flammability. R-452B has a low degree toxicity and it’s nonflammable. That means it is suitable for residential, commercial, and industrial uses since the risk of damage is low during a leak or a fire.

However, that doesn’t mean you should inhale it or not handle it with care. Ensure that you have the right equipment when handling the refrigerant as inhaling it directly can damage your respiratory system. In fact, in case of a leakage, contact an experienced technician with a 608 or 609 certification immediately. Here’s a safety guide that was prepared by one of its manufacturers.

4. Low of costs of replacement

In a previous article, where we were talking about the potential replacements for R410A, one of the things we said you should consider when selecting a refrigerant replacement is cost.

When replacing a refrigerant with another, you have to first investigate the refrigeration components to find out whether they are suitable or not. If they are not, you may have to change the entire system; otherwise, you can damage the system components and affect the product’s warranty.

Apart from being environmentally friendly to R-410A, R-452B matches the capacity of R410A. Hence, it’s adaptable to R410A equipment, which makes the replacement process cost-friendly and fast.

5. Has a low temperature glide

We can describe temperature glide as the temperature difference between the saturated vapor temperature and the saturated liquid temperature at a specific pressure.

Normally, zeotropic refrigerant blends (which are blends comprised of components with different boiling points) such as R452B (which has a temperature glide of -1K) needs to have a small temperature glide to increase the efficiency of the system. You no longer need to oversize or undersize the components.

Here’s a video that explains temperature glide:

Cons of Using R452B

R-452B has some promising benefits; however, it has a few limitations, which we’ll discuss in this section.

For instance:

Although it comes with a low global warming potential than R410A, we may not use it in the future because countries are working towards eliminating refrigerants that use fluorinated substances. Other than that, refrigerants such as natural refrigerants and hydrocarbons have a lower global warming potential than this refrigerant.

The other limitation of using this refrigerant is that it has a low flammability levels. Only certified technicians should handle this refrigerant to avoid severe accidents.

Conclusion

That’s all you need to know about R452B. We believe you now know everything about its properties, how to handle it, and the best applications for it. Thank you for reading our article.

Useful links

• Chemour’s Official Opteon R-452B Page
• Chemour’s Press Release on R-452B
• Understanding What Temperature Glide is
• A Safety Guide on How to Handle HFO Refrigerants
• What is Coefficient of Performance?