Recovery

Recovery is the act of removing refrigerant from an appliance and capturing it in an external container. The definition is deliberately narrow: recovery says nothing about cleaning, testing, or improving the refrigerant. Whatever comes out of the system, with whatever oil, moisture, or contaminants it carries, goes into the recovery container. Recovery is about capture, and capture alone. It is the step that stands between opening a system and venting its charge.

Because recovery is the frontline defense against venting, the regulation attaches performance standards to it. For small appliances, the required capture depends on the recovery equipment and the appliance itself: 80 percent of the charge with equipment manufactured before November 15, 1993, and with later equipment 90 percent when the appliance's compressor operates or 80 percent when it does not, with evacuation to four inches of mercury vacuum as an alternative endpoint.

Recovery is the first rung of a three rung ladder. Recovered refrigerant may go on to recycling, which cleans it for reuse in the field, or to reclamation, which restores it to a purity standard, or to destruction. But nothing further can happen until the charge is out of the appliance and in a container, which is why recovery is the most heavily tested and most frequently performed of the three activities.

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