Engineering assessment of refrigerant recovery and emission control in automotive air-conditioning maintenance and end-of-life vehicle management

¹ China Automotive Technology and Research Center Co., Ltd., No. 68, Xianfeng East Road, Dongli District, Tianjin, China
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China, P. R. China
³ Seilerbahnweg 14 | 61462 Konigstein (Taunus), Germany
⁴ German Development Cooperation GIZ office China

^* E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

Refrigerant emissions from passenger car mobile air-conditioning (MAC) servicing are an important but poorly quantified source of high-GWP greenhouse gases. This study collaborated with H Company’s Guangzhou workshop to develop a standardized refrigerant recovery procedure, collect pre- and post-intervention field data, and estimate emission reduction potential under BAU, WS1, WS2, and MIT scenarios using IPCC-based calculations. Compared with BAU servicing, standardized recovery equipment use and technician training reduced direct workshop emissions by over 90%. At the Guangzhou scale, annual emissions were estimated to decline from 527,261 tCO₂eq under BAU to 165,772 tCO₂eq under the average workshop scenario and to 141,311 tCO₂eq under the mitigation scenario. Because the empirical dataset is based on one pilot workshop, the revised analysis treats the city-scale results as scenario-based estimates rather than statistically representative national averages, and adds uncertainty propagation and sensitivity tests for initial charge, leakage, service interval, recovery rate, fleet size, and GWP/emission-factor choices. The results show that marginal emission reduction plateaus at high workshop recovery rates because on-road leakage remains outside the boundary of workshop interventions. The study, therefore, demonstrates both the mitigation potential and the implementation limits of standardized refrigerant recovery, and highlights the need for multi - site validation before broader extrapolation. This study focuses on the engineering management of refrigerant recovery during automotive air-conditioning servicing and end - of - life vehicle dismantling, rather than solely assessing environmental impacts.