What is Freon?
Have you ever ordered soda or pop in Atlanta? If so, you know that people often use the name “Coke” for all kinds of sugary, fizzy drinks. The same is true for Kleenex, the most common brand name of many varieties of tissue paper.
Just like not all soda or pop is Coke, and not all tissue paper is Kleenex, not all R12 is freon. So why does everyone think refrigerant 12 and the term freon are the same thing?
Where does the name Freon come from?
Thomas Midgley Jr. was an American mechanical and chemical engineer. In the 1920s, as a part of General Motors, he invented dichlorodifluoromethane, also called Refrigerant 12. It was created to be used in air conditioners, automotive air conditioning systems, and other cooling systems.
In 1930, General Motors and DuPont formed the Kinetic Chemical Company. It produce Dupont Freon 12 wherein the name Freon came to refer to all R12 or CFC-12. The same as Coke for pop and Kleenex for tissues. This made them the biggest producer of CFCs in the United States.
DuPont later went on to merge with Dow Chemical. Dow then spun off its refrigerant business as Chemours. The Chemours Company now owns the registered trademark for the brand name Freon.
Despite its market share, there are many other companies that made their own brands of R12 besides DuPont. In the 1970s, Allied Chemical Company was the second largest maker of CFCs in the United States. Union Carbide, Pennwalt Corporation, Kaiser Aluminum, and Racon, Inc. followed. The brand names used by these other manufacturers included:
- National
- Sercon
- Genetron
- Chargette
- Racon
- Forane
- Interdynamics
- Isotron
- LaRoche
What is the Difference Between Freon and R12?
Just as not all R12 is Freon, not all types of Freon are R12 either. Refrigerant 12 is part of a class of refrigerants known as chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs. CFCs also include CFC-11 or R11, CFC-113 or R113, CFC-114 or R114, and CFC-500 or R500.
Each of these also have long chemical names. For example:
- R-11 refrigerant is trichlorofluoromethane or CCl3F
- R-113 refrigerant is trichlorotrifluoroethane or CCl2FCClF2
- R-114 refrigerant is dichlorotetrafluoroethane or CClF2CClF2
In addition to Freon 12, people have applied the brand name Freon to a whole list of newer refrigerants as well. You can buy R-134a, R-22, R-404a, and R-123, among many others – all bearing the brand name Freon.
How Do I Keep This All Straight?
First, be sure to focus on the chemical name – not the manufacturer or the brand. If you need R12 refrigerant, check for the name dichlorodifluoromethane or the chemical CCl2F2 on the cylinder or can.
No matter if the refrigerant is from DuPont, Allied, or Racon, it is still R-12. If the cylinder says National 12 or Sercon 12, check for dichlorodifluoromethane. If you see that term, you know you have R-12 refrigerant.
Second, call the experts at Refrigerant Finders. We operate a national refrigerant buyback program and handle hundreds of transactions each month.
Our team can help you determine what refrigerant is in your shed or garage. We use pictures and clues from the cylinder or can. We can also send our expert team to connect your cylinder to an analyzer. This will assure you that you have the real deal.
