Technical Bulletin No.

161 C

Evacuation of Ammonia and CO2 Refrigerant Circuits

The purpose of this technical bulletin is to provide guidance on the requirements for proper
evacuation of ammonia and CO2 refrigerant circuits before introducing refrigerant. Adequate
evacuation is necessary to ensure good system efficiency, long component life and reliable
operation. This document has been prepared to highlight the fact that purging through with
refrigerant or using a purger to get the air back out some time later is bad practice and should not
be relied upon.

We all know we need to carefully evacuate HFC systems but the effects of leaving air in an
ammonia and CO2 system are sometimes not obvious. Remember, evacuation removes
moisture as well as air.

A refrigeration plant with a very small amount of non condensable gas in the condenser could
easily condense at 1.0K higher pressure than it should. This would cause the compressors to
absorb approximately 3% extra power which would typically cost £1,400 extra in electricity per
year for a 1000 kW water chiller (at 2010 electricity prices).

CO2 plant should always be carefully evacuated as moisture in CO2 will cause internal corrosion
of carbon steel components due to the formation of carbonic acid. In addition many cascade
CO2 systems have low volume plate and shell or plate heat exchanger CO2 condensers that are
particularly susceptible to high condensing pressure due to a build-up of non condensable gas in
the very small volume condenser.

1.0 General

A vacuum pump should be used to remove air from all systems following every case
where the system is opened up. When evacuating systems following service work it is
recommended that the vacuum be taken down to 20 Torr but the lower the better. Below
20 Torr the rate the vacuum pump can withdraw the air becomes very slow and it isn’t
considered essential to go further.

Driving air out by blowing through with refrigerant is not sufficient.

Evacuating even only down to 20 Torr will remove more than 97% of the air in a system.
Blowing through refrigerant in the manor some people believe is effective can remove
75% of the air but the process is not effective to remove much more than this. Blowing
through with refrigerant to remove 97% of the air in a typical industrial compressor
package unit (with 1.5 m3 internal volume) would take approximately 8 kg of ammonia, 2
hours if purging through a 6 mm tube and 100 litres of water to absorb the vented
ammonia.

2.0 Procedure

Connect the vacuum pump to the system after closing it up. Run the vacuum pump until
the system pressure falls to less than 20 Torr.

Do not introduce refrigerant or nitrogen into the system while evacuating it.

When a satisfactory vacuum pressure has been achieved, isolate the vacuum pump
connection pipe and then stop the pump.

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Technical Bulletin No. 161 C

Equivalent Vacuum Pressures

Pa mBar
(typical mmHg*
(typical
Torr Bar(G) Bar(A) absolute (mm of
absolute
scale) mercury)
scale)
20 -0.9733 0.0267 2,666 26.7 20
15 -0.9800 0.0200 2,000 20.0 15
10 -0.9867 0.0133 1,333 13.3 10
5 -0.9933 0.0067 666 6.7 5
1 -0.9987 0.0013 133 1.3 1
*Can be considered the same as Torr for practical purposes when evacuating refrigeration plant

3.0 Additional Notes

The safety method statement should include the following:

• The evacuation of the system should only be carried out when there is someone
present. It is possible that evacuation could cause a stop valve that had been
holding tight to leak.

• Evacuation of oil separators (in particular) can cause some ammonia to be drawn
from dilution in the oil and be vented from the vacuum pump. In this case it is
likely that the outlet from the pump will smell and it would be best to locate the
pump outdoors.

• Ammonia could damage a vacuum pump – use one specifically designed for
ammonia or an old one.

• If a standard vacuum pump is contaminated with ammonia it should be run for

approximately 10 minutes with its inlet open to atmosphere then the oil should be
changed to minimise the damage due to contamination.

Although extra time and effort is required to properly evacuate a refrigeration plant
instead of just purging it the extra effort will be payed back in improved system reliability
and robustness not to mention efficiency savings for our customers.

Date Issue Changes Originator

19-08-10 A Draft – not issued AMG
8-11-10 B Target pressure altered AMG
Equivalent pressures table added

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