Impact of leakage during HFC-125 production on the increase in HCFC-123 and HCFC-124 emissions
Name
acp-25-17761-2025.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.42 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
dc9dcd346d7bcb8b21841a0ca28907c7
Date Issued
December 5, 2025
Journal
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Publisher
Copernicus GmbH
Citation
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 17761–17778, 2025
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are ozone-depleting substances whose production and consumption have been phased out under the Montreal Protocol in non-Article 5 (mainly developed) countries and are currently being phased out in the rest of the world. Here, we focus on two HCFCs, HCFC-123 and HCFC-124, whose emissions are not decreasing globally in line with their phase-out. We present the first measurement-derived estimates of global HCFC-123 emissions (1993–2023) and updated HCFC-124 emissions for 1978–2023. Around 5 Gg yr−1 of HCFC-123 and 3 Gg yr−1 of HCFC-124 were emitted in 2023. Both HCFC-123 and HCFC-124 are intermediates in the production of HFC-125, a non-ozone-depleting hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) that has replaced ozone-depleting substances in many applications. We show that it is possible that the observed global increase in HCFC-124 emissions could be entirely due to leakage from the production of HFC-125, provided that its leakage rate is around 1 % by mass of HFC-125 production. Global emissions of HCFC-123 have not decreased despite its phase-out for production under the Montreal Protocol, and its use in HFC-125 production may be a contributing factor to this. Emissions of HCFC-124 from western Europe, the USA and East Asia have either fallen or not increased since 2015 and together cannot explain the entire increase in the derived global emissions of HCFC-124. These findings add to the growing evidence that emissions of some ozone-depleting substances are increasing due to leakage and improper destruction during fluorochemical production.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-17761-2025
