Working substance of a refrigerator

[iScience]

i don't know where to post this so mods or admins can repost to whatever section is best fit.


in my thermo class we were learning about the refrigerator and as soon as the prof said the working substance was CFC i remembered back to my high school chemistry days when my high school chem teacher told us that CFC was banned for Ozone depletion. and apparently freon is still used everywhere. i did a little "research" and all i was able to find was that CFC is actually a class of chemicals, one of which happens to be freon.

but i thought ALL CFC's were banned. why is freon still in use then? is freon a paticular CFC that has no effect on the ozone?

 

[SteamKing]

The ban only covered the production of new CFC material. All equipment and existing stocks of CFC material were allowed to remain in use. Appliances like refrigerators can run for many years with the CFC material that was supplied at the factory. Other equipment, like air conditioners which use CFC material can be recharged with CFCs which were produced before manufacture was banned. However, since the amount of this material is dwindling, its price has risen as a result. Also, the ban on manufacture of CFC was not imposed on certain 'developing' countries because of economic hardship.

For a summary of the details, this article might help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol