Reclaim, destruction and certification review

On the last Friday of the month, the reclaimer's truck backed up to Northfield's shop and the driver loaded the pallet Theo had prepared: six recovery cylinders, each weighed, tagged and listed on the shipping document, and one cylinder labeled as mixed refrigerant from a cooler of unknown history. Two weeks later the reclaimer's report came back by email. Five cylinders had been accepted as recoverable product and credited to Northfield's account. The mixed cylinder had been sent for destruction, at a charge. "That's the whole story of this module on one page," Dana said. "Keep refrigerant clean, keep it separate, keep the records, and it comes back as something useful. Mix it up and it costs us money to burn."

This last lesson follows recovered refrigerant to the end of its path: recycling for reuse, reclaiming to new-product purity, or destruction. It then reviews the whole module through a capstone job and prepares you for your certification.

Three fates for recovered refrigerant

Recovered refrigerant can go three ways.

• Reuse in the same owner's equipment: refrigerant recovered during a repair can be returned to the system it came from, or to other equipment of the same owner, sometimes after recycling on site to remove moisture and particles. This is common when a system is opened for a component change and recharged with its own refrigerant.
• Reclaim: refrigerant that will be sold or used in another owner's equipment must first be reclaimed, reprocessed to the purity of new product and verified by laboratory analysis. Reclaimers distil the refrigerant, remove water, acid, oil and non-condensables, and test each batch.
• Destruction: refrigerant that is too mixed or contaminated to reclaim economically, and ozone-depleting refrigerant that is no longer wanted, is destroyed by high-temperature processes at facilities approved for the purpose, which break the molecules down and capture the resulting acids.

Which path refrigerant takes depends largely on how it was handled in the field. A cylinder that holds only one refrigerant, without air or excessive oil, is valuable. A cylinder that holds two refrigerants mixed together is waste.

The reclaim standard

Reclaimed refrigerant must meet the purity standard AHRI 700, the same specification that new refrigerant must meet. It sets limits on the contaminants that harm systems or show the product is not what it claims to be, such as:

Reclaimers in the United States must be certified by EPA, must process refrigerant to AHRI 700 and verify each batch by laboratory analysis, must not release more than a small share of the refrigerant they process, and must keep records and report the amounts they receive and reclaim. Under the AIM Act rule, reclaimed HFC refrigerant may contain no more than 15 percent virgin HFC by weight, and its containers must be labeled to certify that, so that reclaimed product really is recovered refrigerant. From 2029, certain kinds of equipment, including supermarket systems, refrigerated transport and automatic commercial ice makers, must be serviced with reclaimed HFC refrigerant, which will increase demand for clean recovered product.

Cylinders, heels and the shipping pallet

Recovery cylinders are shipped to the reclaimer as dangerous goods, as Lesson 4 explained. Each must be within its retest date, filled no more than its limit, labeled with the refrigerant and an accurate weight, and listed on the shipping document. Most reclaimers return empty recovery cylinders, evacuated and ready to use, or exchange them for clean ones.

Disposable cylinders of new refrigerant are never truly empty when the gauge reads zero at room temperature: some refrigerant, the heel, remains as vapor and sometimes liquid. Under the AIM Act rule, by January 1, 2028, disposable cylinders containing HFC heels must be sent to a reclaimer, recycler or final processor that will recover the heel, unless a certified technician has evacuated the cylinder to 15 inches of mercury vacuum and certified that it has been done. Northfield recovers the heel of every disposable cylinder to that level, records it, and then punctures or marks the cylinder so it cannot be mistaken for a full one, as the scrap dealer requires.

# Preparing a reclaimer shipment: net weights, limits and carbon dioxide equivalent
gwp = {"R-22": 1810, "R-404A": 3922, "R-410A": 2088, "R-134a": 1430, "R-448A": 1387, "mixed": 2000}
LB_PER_METRIC_TON = 2204.6
cylinders = [  # (cylinder number, refrigerant, water capacity lb, tare lb, gross lb)
    ("NM-114", "R-22", 47.7, 26.5, 64.2),
    ("NM-117", "R-22", 47.7, 26.5, 60.4),
    ("NM-121", "R-410A", 47.7, 26.7, 59.1),
    ("NM-122", "R-404A", 47.7, 26.5, 53.6),
    ("NM-130", "R-134a", 47.7, 26.2, 48.5),
    ("NM-131", "R-448A", 47.7, 26.5, 39.5),
    ("NM-140", "mixed", 47.7, 26.5, 34.4),
]
total_lb = total_t = 0.0
for num, ref, wc, tare, gross in cylinders:
    net = gross - tare
    limit = 0.8 * wc
    ok = "ok" if net <= limit else "OVERFILLED - do not ship"
    t = net * gwp[ref] / LB_PER_METRIC_TON
    total_lb += net
    total_t += t
    print(f"{num}  {ref:7s} net {net:5.1f} lb (limit {limit:4.1f})  {t:5.1f} t CO2e  {ok}")
print(f"Shipment: {total_lb:.1f} lb of refrigerant, about {total_t:.0f} metric tons CO2e kept out of the air")

NM-114  R-22    net  37.7 lb (limit 38.2)   31.0 t CO2e  ok
NM-117  R-22    net  33.9 lb (limit 38.2)   27.8 t CO2e  ok
NM-121  R-410A  net  32.4 lb (limit 38.2)   30.7 t CO2e  ok
NM-122  R-404A  net  27.1 lb (limit 38.2)   48.2 t CO2e  ok
NM-130  R-134a  net  22.3 lb (limit 38.2)   14.5 t CO2e  ok
NM-131  R-448A  net  13.0 lb (limit 38.2)    8.2 t CO2e  ok
NM-140  mixed   net   7.9 lb (limit 38.2)    7.2 t CO2e  ok
Shipment: 174.3 lb of refrigerant, about 167 metric tons CO2e kept out of the air

The check catches nothing this time, but it would have caught an overfilled cylinder before it went on a truck. The mixed cylinder is given an assumed GWP for the estimate only; the reclaimer's analysis determines what it actually contains.

Capstone: decommissioning the grocery rack

The grocery rack job from Lessons 8 and 9 brings together almost everything in this module. Here is how Northfield ran it, step by step, and where each step comes from.

• Identify: the rack's records, nameplates and standing pressures confirmed R-22, with a recorded full charge of 100 lb. An identifier check of the receiver vapor confirmed it was not mixed (Lesson 2).
• Rules: an ozone-depleting refrigerant, so the Section 608 rules applied: certified technicians, certified recovery equipment, the required evacuation level, and disposal records (Lesson 5).
• Safety: the rack sat in a basement machine room. The team checked the oxygen level before entering, ran the exhaust fan, wore glasses and gloves, and kept torches off site until the refrigerant was recovered (Lesson 3).
• Cylinders: four dedicated R-22 recovery cylinders, inspected, within their retest dates, evacuated, weighed and tagged, with scales and float switches (Lesson 4).
• Equipment and setup: a certified recovery machine, short large-diameter hoses with ball valves, valve cores removed (Lesson 7).
• Method: push-pull from the receiver to move the liquid, watched on the scale, then vapor recovery from every section, both high and low sides (Lesson 8).
• Level: the rack's charge was under 200 lb, so the required level was 0 inches of vacuum; the team pulled it well below that and confirmed it held for fifteen minutes before opening (Lesson 9).
• Records: each cylinder's net weight and number on the service record, the total recovered compared with the full charge, and the refrigerant added to the company's monthly reconciliation (Lesson 6).
• Oil and equipment: the rack's oil drained into a waste oil container after recovery, the rack labeled as recovered for the scrap dealer, and disposal paperwork completed (Lesson 9).
• Shipping: the recovered R-22 sent to the reclaimer on the next pallet (this lesson).

The recovered total was 94 lb, about 95 percent of the recorded full charge. The difference is consistent with the rack's history of slow leaks before it was shut down and with refrigerant dissolved in the oil. Dana signed off the job, and Theo's name went on the paperwork as the technician who did the recovery.

Certification review

The Section 608 exam tests the material in this module in four sections. Every candidate takes Core, then the types needed. The main topics to review in each are:

• Core: ozone depletion and climate change, the chlorine cycle, ODP, GWP and CO₂e (Lesson 1).
• Core: the Clean Air Act, the Montreal Protocol, the AIM Act, the venting prohibition and its exceptions, certification and the sales restriction (Lessons 5 and 6).
• Core: recover, recycle and reclaim, certified recovery equipment, dehydration and evacuation, and refrigerant identification (Lessons 2 and 7).
• Core: safety, including PPE, oxygen deficiency, decomposition and nitrogen use, and cylinders, including the 80 percent fill rule and DOT requirements (Lessons 3 and 4).
• Type I, small appliances: the definition of a small appliance, the 90 and 80 percent recovery requirements or 4 inches of vacuum, system-dependent recovery, piercing valves, safe disposal and hydrocarbons in small appliances (Lessons 7 and 9).
• Type II, high- and very high-pressure equipment: the evacuation levels table, liquid and vapor recovery, push-pull and recovering from systems with receivers (Lessons 8 and 9).
• Type II: leak detection, leak repair thresholds, timelines, verification tests and records (Lessons 10 and 11).
• Type III, low-pressure equipment: equipment that runs below atmospheric pressure, purge units, leak testing by raising pressure with heat or nitrogen within set limits, the 25 mm Hg absolute recovery level, and recovering liquid first (Lessons 8 and 9, and later chiller courses).

A few habits help on any certification test. Read the whole question and every option before answering; many wrong options are true statements that do not answer the question asked. Watch for words such as always, never, except and first. When a question is about what to do, the safe and legal answer is almost always the one that keeps refrigerant out of the air and people out of danger. And for questions with numbers, such as fill limits, recovery percentages and leak rates, work the arithmetic rather than guessing.

# Self-check: score practice questions by topic and find the weakest areas
results = {  # topic: (correct, attempted)
    "ozone and climate": (9, 10),
    "rules and certification": (13, 18),
    "safety": (9, 10),
    "cylinders": (8, 10),
    "recovery equipment and methods": (11, 14),
    "recovery levels and small appliances": (6, 10),
    "leak detection and repair": (12, 15),
}
PASS = 0.75
total_c = sum(c for c, a in results.values())
total_a = sum(a for c, a in results.values())
print(f"Overall {total_c}/{total_a} = {total_c / total_a * 100:.0f} %")
for topic, (c, a) in sorted(results.items(), key=lambda kv: kv[1][0] / kv[1][1]):
    share = c / a
    note = "review" if share < PASS else "ready"
    print(f"{topic:38s} {c:2d}/{a:2d}  {share * 100:4.0f} %  {note}")

Overall 68/87 = 78 %
recovery levels and small appliances    6/10    60 %  review
rules and certification                13/18    72 %  review
recovery equipment and methods         11/14    79 %  ready
cylinders                               8/10    80 %  ready
leak detection and repair              12/15    80 %  ready
ozone and climate                       9/10    90 %  ready
safety                                  9/10    90 %  ready

Theo's own results looked much like the program's example: strong on the science and safety, weaker on the rules and on recovery levels. He spent his last study evening on those two lessons, and they were the topics he found easiest on the day.

The technician's part

The rules in this module can seem like a lot of paperwork around a simple job. Seen from Dana's red number on the shop door, they are something else: a system that turns thousands of ordinary service calls into one of the largest climate and ozone benefits any trade delivers. Every recovered cylinder, every leak found and fixed, every accurate record is part of it. The rest of the RAC program builds on these habits: when you charge a heat pump, braze a line set or commission a supermarket rack, you will be expected to handle refrigerant the way this module describes, every time.