Broadband infrared sources for tomorrow's refrigerant leak detection

The need to monitor refrigerant leaks is widening because of the variety of applications and increasingly stringent environmental regulations. Despite the trend for transition towards refrigerants with low-Global Warming Potential (GWP) and low-Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP), gas leakages need to be detected. Axetris' EMIRS Infrared Sources provide reliable results.

Following the ban of Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) due to their extremely high ODP in the 1990s, Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) were widely used. With their extremely high GWP, also they are not the refrigerant of choice in the long term. Potential candidates could be Hydrocarbons, NH3 or CO2. These substances may not be harmful in terms of ODP and GWP but they are flammable, explosive, poisonous or at least hazardous to health.

When building new cooling systems, the most important factors next to economical considerations are safety and environmental friendliness. It does not matter whether we look at commercial racks and condensing units > 5 kW, industrial refrigeration facilities > 1 MW or commercial A/C systems > 20 kW, the fact remains that all those units need to be maintained and monitored to detect leakages soon enough to minimize the environmental impact and secure safety. Optical gas sensors are the ideal technology to detect small leakages reliably, due to their high sensitivity and long-term stability.

The Axetris broadband EMIRS technology with its unique black body characteristics offers an excellent product for such optical gas sensors. It is suitable to measure almost all species of refrigerants by covering the complete MIR range making it the best choice for modular NDIR refrigerant gas leak sensors.

The EMIRS200 IR Source is established for very precise built-in refrigerant leak detectors. The new EMIRS50 IR Source family is optimised for portable and battery operated refrigerant leak detectors or simple refrigerant sniffers.