HFC-227ea vs HFC-125

This is a common question among IT / mission critical facility stakeholders.

I'll try to boil it down to a few key points:-

HFC-227ea (commonly known as FM-200)
- Most commonly used agent for halon-replacement applications
- Readily available in most every geography around the world
- Some OEM's can provide in a delivery methodology allowing nearly direct halon drop-in replacement
- Safe for people, and the assets within the protected space

HFC-125 (commonly known as FE-25)
- Newly available on the market; not quite as easily available for re-fill purposes
- Previously had toxicological interpretation questions, so was generally not used in occupied spaces
- Recent (2000) adoption of certain methodologies to interpret tox. data allows this agent to be used more liberally, thus allowing more freedom for use in occupied spaces
- Generally requires ~15% less agent than FM-200, thus making it generally more economical for the same space

In terms of actual fire suppression performance, the two are virtually identical.

Hope this helps!