If the refrigerant type cannot be identified, how should it be treated?

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When you can’t identify the refrigerant, the safest and most compliant approach is to recover it and treat it as unknown, keeping it separate from all other refrigerants until its identity is established. This means pulling the refrigerant from the system with proper recovery equipment into a dedicated recovery cylinder and labeling it as unknown, then routing it to a qualified reclamation or disposal facility when possible. Do not vent to the atmosphere, do not discard into waste streams, and do not mix it with other refrigerants. Once the composition is known, you can handle it correctly for reclamation or disposal.