An evaporator tube splits and chilled water floods into the refrigerant side of a low-pressure machine. What happens to the refrigerant that is recovered out of that machine?
Correct Answer
D) It goes to a certified reclaimer, because water contamination puts it outside the limits for reuse
Refrigerant that has been in contact with a flooded shell picks up water, and water in a low-pressure machine turns into acid that attacks the tubes, the motor windings and the bearings. Field filtration cannot bring it back to the purity standard. The charge goes to a certified reclaimer, which processes it to the industry purity specification and tests it before it is sold again. The permission to put a charge straight back into the same appliance assumes the refrigerant was not contaminated.
Why This Is the Correct Answer
Returning a charge to the appliance it came from normally needs no further processing, but that allowance does not cover refrigerant that has been contaminated. Water flooding the shell puts the charge outside the purity specification, and only a certified reclaimer has the equipment to strip the moisture and verify the result before it goes back into service.
Why the Other Options Are Wrong
Option A: It is drained off the bottom of the cylinder, because the water separates and can be poured off on site
Some free water will settle out, but the refrigerant will still be saturated with dissolved moisture, and that is the part that forms acid inside the machine.
Option B: It goes straight back in after the tube is plugged, because it came out of that same appliance
The same-appliance allowance covers a charge that is still fit for use. Putting a wet charge back guarantees acid formation and a second, larger failure.
Option C: It is run through the recovery unit's filter twice, which brings it back inside the purity limits
Recovery equipment filters and driers are built to catch particulate and a little moisture, not to restore a flooded charge to the purity standard.
Memory Technique
Same machine, same charge, only if it is still the same quality.
Reference Hint
A charge may go back into the same appliance without reclamation only if it is not contaminated; water contamination sends it to a certified reclaimer.
More epa-608-type-3 Questions
Some jobs on a chiller count as a major repair under the refrigerant rules, which changes what a technician is allowed to do with a badly leaking machine. Which job falls into that category?
An owner asks how many pounds of refrigerant the rules allow to be left inside a chiller once the recovery has been signed off. What is the correct answer to give him?
The motor of a hermetic centrifugal chiller sits inside the pressure boundary rather than outside it on a shaft. What follows from that construction?
An oxygen monitor is used to decide whether a chiller machine room is safe to enter after a refrigerant release. Below what oxygen reading is the atmosphere treated as oxygen deficient?
A low-pressure chiller's rupture disc has a discharge line running from it. Where does that line have to terminate?
A refrigerant vapor detector in a chiller machine room reaches its alarm level. Besides sounding, what is that alarm expected to do?
Which piece of equipment requires a technician to hold Type III certification before it may be serviced?
What property of the refrigerant is what actually places an appliance into the low-pressure category?
During normal operation, what condition exists inside the evaporator of a running low-pressure centrifugal chiller?
In what unit is the required final recovery vacuum for a low-pressure appliance normally expressed?
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