Heat pump the brand name Freon, a trademark of DuPont. Its manufacture is now banned or severely restricted by the Montreal Protocol of August 1987 because of the damage that CFCs cause to the ozone layer if released into the atmosphere. One widely adopted replacement refrigerant is the hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) known as R-134a (1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane). Heat pumps using R-134a replaced R-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane) and have similar thermodynamic properties but with insignificant ozone depletion potential and a somewhat lower global warming potential. Other substances such as liquid R-717 ammonia are widely used in large-scale systems, or occasionally the less corrosive but more flammable propane or
Montreal Protocol including most of the major CFC producers, signed the Vienna Convention, which established a framework for negotiating international regulations on ozone-depleting substances. After the discovery of the ozone hole by SAGE 2 it only took 18 months to reach a binding agreement in Montreal, Canada. But the CFC industry did not give up that easily. As late as 1986, the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy (an association representing the CFC industry founded by DuPont) was still arguing that the science was too uncertain to justify any action. In 1987, DuPont testified before the US Congress that "We believe there is