Efficient, Eco-friendly Air Conditioner

By Maulida AS | Putri A | Rahayu S

Time to time, human’s life is always developing. Technology, knowledge, economy, even the
livelihood is going through significant changes. As they are changing, the earth is also experiencing the
changes that were already predicted by the earlier scientist. The role of the human is to always take a
good care the environment as well as human can to keep the human existence. Today, human is
experiencing the industry revolution that lays the life in the industry fields. These changes can lead to
positive and negative effects. The effect of the industry revolution that is happening will keep on
happening and will caused positive effects if it is used wisely. This will affects the environment even the
human living in the environment.

One of the effects that are connected to the environment is Global Warming. Global Warming is
the increasing earth’s temperature. The Global Warming happens in the last few years. The things that
happen in the global warming for the example are the rising of the sea surface that is caused by the ice
melting in both of the pole, and the temperature in the city are increasing to be hotter.

Global warming is caused by green house effect and the damage of ozone. Green house effect
occurs when the heat of the sun that gets in to the earth is trapped in the earth and it can’t go back
from atmosphere. This is caused because there are so many pollutants that hold the light to get out of
the earth. The pollutants are the fumes from the vehicles and the emission from the factories that
contains the carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

Ozone layer is a gas layer that is formed in the atmosphere around 20 – 25 km from the surface
of the earth. Ozone is the result from the reaction of oxygen and UV rays from the sun. Ozone in the air
has functions, which are to hold and to filter the radiation of the UV rays from the sun in the safer level.

Ozone layer is so important because it absorbs the radiation of the UV rays from the sun to
protect the high radiation that touches the surface if the earth. UV rays from the sun divided to UV-A,
UV-B, and UV-C. By the ozone layer UV-A, as the safest rays, can touch the surface of the earth, while
UV-B and UV-C as most dangerous rays, can’t touch the surface of the earth. The difference of the ability
of the rays that gets into the earth are depends on the wavelength and the frequency from each ray.
 The cause of the green house effect and the damage of the ozone is the emission of the
economic and industrial activity that is developing rapidly. The substance that supports these damages
is carbon dioxide and CFC (Chloro fluoro carbon). Carbon dioxides are produced from the emission of
the factories while the CFCs are produced by the air conditioner and refrigerator as the cooler. Ironically,
those devices are needed to overcome the temperature of the earth that is increasing but is those
devices are used continuously will cause the worst damages.

CFC is a compound that contains carbon atom attached to chlorine and fluorine. General CFCs
that is used are CFC-11 (Trichloromonofluoromethane or freon 11) and CFC-12
(Dichlorodifluoromethane). CFC is a non-flammable compound and non-toxic compound. In
approximately 5 years, CFC moves up slowly to the stratosphere (10 – 50 km). Molecules of CFC break
after blend with the UV rays and release the chlorine atom. This chlorine atom tries to destroy the
ozone and creates ozone holes.

There are some tools that use CFC, such as:

1. Air conditioner
2. Refrigerator
3. Solvent
4. Sprayer
5. Process of making plastic, like polystyrene foam or polyuretene that expands.

Industrial and technology development often has the opposite with the environment
conservation issue. Many manufacturers still non-eco friendly components, especially which contains
ozone destroyer component. For the example CFC and HCFC that is used as a cooling agent in
refrigerator and air conditioner. Also there is a substance called Halon that is used as fire extinguish and
there is carbon tetrachloride as a solvent, cleaner, and other substance.

In Indonesia, to push down the usage of ozone destroyer components, the Ministry of Industry
took out the regulation No. 41/M-IND/PER/5/2014. Supporting the regulation, the Ministry of Trading
also took out the regulation No. 55/M-Dag/PER/9/2014 about the same prohibition about the usage of
ozone destroyer component. Also the Montreal Protocol stated that R-12 is a compound that contains
an ozone destroyer component is prohibited.
 The other party that experiences this regulation is the producer of the air conditioner. These
days, some manufacturers are moving to the eco friendly air conditioner technology. One of the
examples is by using the Freon R-32 or using hydrocarbon compound like propane. Beside its small
possibility to damage the ozone, R-32 also has lower number to cause the global warming. That is 30%
less damaging than R-22.

Hydrocarbon can be used as the substitution of the CFC that has so many inefficiencies.
Hydrocarbon compound is a compound that contains carbon and hydrogen atoms. Most of hydrocarbon
compounds are used as fuels and industrial needs. The examples of hydrocarbon compound are LPG,
gasoline, asphalt, avtur.

Looking backwards, crisis of energy is one of the main problem in Indonesia even the world. This
problem spreads, including the electricity. Electricity is one of the energy that is significant for the
modern human. Energy holds a very big role is the development of the economy. Both in advanced or
developing country, wise usage of energy is an important requirement to increase economical activity.

One of the applications of wise energy usage is by using an environmentally friendly air
conditioner. All this time, the government lack of socialization in using the environmentally friendly air
conditioner. SNI is an important agency to standardize the components of the air conditioner.
Environmentally friendly air conditioner is an air conditioner with cooling capacity output (BTU/h)
compared to the high number of the power consumption. It means when the ratio is higher the more
efficient it will be.

The energy needed for one air conditioner is also overwhelming; it is the same as 100 million
tons of CO2 in a year. People are trying to reduce the effects for the environment; by making standards
for air conditioner to be an environmentally friendly air conditioner that will not harm the environment.
Standards are important for every device, especially air conditioner to help for better future.

Air conditioner needs a large amount of electricity to cool down one room. An air conditioner
needs 6 time higher electricity when it’s turned on than when it is running so the electricity needed is
actually bigger than expected. Air conditioner also has the cooling capacity, the ability to remove the
heat in the room by reaching the temperature set or usually called relative humidity. By having a cooling
capacity, an air conditioner usually said to be efficient because cooling capacity can be effective in the
right room size. To do its “efficiency” an air conditioner usually needs and extra power, for the example
air conditioner needs 600 W to run, and for the cooling capacity it needs 100 W, in total calculation, an
air conditioner needs 700 W to run and even the start up power is more than that. It is not actually as
effective as people thought. According to the JIS C 9612:2005 an air conditioner can’t have cooling
capacity more than 10 kW and cooling power more than 3 kW for the purpose of the comfortable air
conditioning in a room. By that standard, it helps people to wisely choose the air conditioner based on
the room size to reduce the usage of the electricity and of course to reduce the electricity bill.

Air conditioner is a device that changes the humidity or the temperature in a room to make
people feel cozier which use refrigerant that mostly is dangerous for the atmosphere. The refrigerant
that is often used is CFC, but because of its dangerous effects on the ozone people are now changing the
CFC to HCFC which actually can harm the environment as well. HCFC can cause a global warming. Based
on SNI 7647:2005 people can change the refrigerant to hydrocarbon compounds. Hydrocarbon
compound is an organic compound that can give a cooling effect without dangerous result from the
evaporation that can harm the ozone or the environment. Hydrocarbon can be a good substitution from
the hazardous refrigerant.

Air conditioner with HCFCs is harder to be disposed than the air conditioner with hydrocarbon.
In United States the federal stated that when an air conditioner in disposed, the HCFCs in it needs to be
recovered, based on Environmental Protection Agency, an equipment that contained HCFC must be
disposed safely following the Safe Disposal Requirements which is harder to do than disposing the
hydrocarbon refrigerant. As an organic compound, hydrocarbon can be disposed without any dangerous
effects. By substituting HCFC with the hydrocarbon, it is easier to dispose the refrigerant without using
the certain treatment. This case can be developed by standardization agency to standardize the usage of
hydrocarbon compound as a refrigerant for air conditioner.

Other negative effect of air conditioner is that it can harm people’s health. Being in a room with
air conditioner for too long, people can be weak when placed in a room without an air conditioner. And
also a careless maintenance can lead to health hazard. A dirty filter can allow other dangerous
pollutants to get inside and harm people’s health. So people needs to frequently clean the filters.

In conclusion, standardized air conditioner has so many advantages for people and for
environments. The standardized air conditioner can help people to reduce their electricity bill but feel as
satisfied because of the proper choice of air conditioner with the right cooling capacity. And the
environment will not be harmed by the dangerous refrigerant because the standards can solve the
problems.