REFRIGERANTS
Refrigerant management under F-gas
John Poole of Refrigerant Solutions looks at the the wider picture of refrigerant recovery and recycling.
T
he F-gas regulation in the European Union phases down the production and use of fluorocarbons according to a strict timetable, so that the sale of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) will not be permitted to exceed 31% of the base level (2009-2012) in 2030. Challenging cutbacks during this period will result in severe shortages and inevitably higher prices. indeed, this is already happening,
particularly in the case of refrigerants with high GWPs such as R404A.
HFC quotas have been allocated to specific suppliers in the EU which are cutback according to the announced schedule, and this is done on an equivalent CO2
basis. The simple arithmetic,
for example, shows that over two tonnes of RS-50 (R442A) – a drop-in replacement for R404A – can be sold in place of one tonne of
R404A, while three tonnes of R32 are permitted in place of R410A.
The inevitable conclusion to all of this is that not only will higher GWP refrigerants become increasingly difficult to obtain, but the availability of all newly manufactured HFCs will be substantially constrained and insufficient to meet the needs of customers and users. It makes good sense to use lower GWP refrigerants where suitable alternatives exist. The MAC Directive will assist this process with very low R1234yf replacing R134a in mobile air conditioning (and possibly CO2
itself in the
longer term), but will not alter the necessity of moving away from high GWP products to alternatives with lower or zero GWP. The availability of HFCs in this strictly regulated environment can be significantly improved by the recovery and reclamation of waste refrigerants, which will become a vital source of supply over the next few years and beyond. A practical example of recovering waste material satisfactorily is Halon 1301 which, despite being banned in 1994, continues to be used by the global airline industry even today since there is no currently no satisfactory replacement with all the key properties of Halon 1302 which are essential for aircraft. However, providing a comprehensive recovery and reclamation service is not easy or straightforward. There are a number of difficult obstacles to overcome to provide a national system – and in the case of the EU, this would need to be transnational – including but not restricted to waste regulations, ability
40 August 2017
www.acr-news.com
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