Global warming potential predictions for hydrofluoroethers with two carbon atoms

Global warming potentials are predicted using computational chemistry and thermodynamics approaches for four hydrofluoroethers where no data have previously been available. We also compare results with the same methodology for six other species. We combine predictions of radiative forcing values from density functional theory computations at the B3LYP/6-31g*level of theory with previous experimentally determined or newly estimated hydroxyl radical-hydrogen abstraction rate constants to obtain these global warming potentials. We find that many of the HFEs studied have lower global warming potentials than the hydrofluorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons they may soon replace, although other environmental and technical issues may need to be addressed first.