Alec Johnson
Attention: A new article from December of 2016 can be found by clicking here. Here we go again. Yesterday the American Hydroflurocarbon Coalition filed a lawsuit with the United States Department of Commerce claiming that HFC refrigerants such as R-134a, R-410A, and R-404A are being imported from China at an unfair price. This is big … Read more
Refrigerant reclamation is a multi-billion dollar industry across the United States and throughout the world. If you are working with CFC or HCFC refrigerants you are required to recover the refrigerant and either recycle or send to a refrigerant reclaimer. While the original intent of refrigerant recovery was to prevent the venting of CFCs/HCFCs into … Read more
All refrigerants are identified by having an ‘R’ in front for refrigerant and with a set of numbers after the ‘R.’ This numbering system has been standardized by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers association. In order for refrigerants to be easier to identify they have all also been color coded. The … Read more
In October of 2013 DuPont announced that they would be creating a new company for their chemical manufacturing division. The new company would be called the ‘Chemours Company.’ The name Chemours comes from a combination of the word Chemicals and of the small town in France called Nemours. (The DuPonts were from Nemours.) This new … Read more
Counterfeit refrigerants are slowly becoming a widespread problem throughout the world. Just recently there were twenty tons of R-22 refrigerant disguised as R-134a being brought into Russia. Russian custom officials caught and confiscated the fake shipment. (Story can be found here.) On top of the Russian import there was another instance in India where a … Read more
First and foremost please note that refrigerant is a commodity and prices can change wildly from week to week. It all depends on demand and any market surprises. Think of refrigerant as oil. You always hear about how much a barrel of oil is in the news and see how fast it can change. Refrigerant … Read more
Refrigerant is a commodity and prices can change wildly from week to week. It all depends on demand and any market surprises. Think of refrigerant as oil. You always hear about how much a barrel of oil is in the news and see how fast it can change. Refrigerant is very similar and fluctuates accordingly… … Read more
As everyone knows R-22 was phased out in 2010, production was scaled back in 2015, and it will be completely phased out in 2020. With these phase outs occurring over the past five years the price of R-22 Refrigerant has sky rocketed to right at about three hundred dollars for a thirty pound cylinder. With … Read more
Attention! Please click here for an updated article on this subject from December of 2016. Thank you! It really depends on where you are at in the world. If you live within the European Union you know that 134a was phased out back in 2011 for all new model vehicles and it will be phased … Read more
Earlier this month a man broke into a Norfolk, VA refrigerant distributor’s facility and helped himself to one-hundred and fifty jugs of R-22 refrigerant. The news article can be found here, but there isn’t too much to read as cops don’t have much to go off of. No mention of how he transported it or … Read more
Enviro-Safe, a refrigerant manufacturer in Perkin, IL, was fined $300,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency this month due to them selling non-approved flammable hydrocarbon refrigerants. The refrigerants in question were hydrocarbon alternatives to R-22 and R-502. Enviro-Safe has them listed as ES R-22a and ES R-502a. With the EPA’s SNAP program all alternative refrigerants need … Read more
I did a post on 2015 refrigerant predictions last November and figured I would do another post predicting this summer’s pricing as well as the fall and even into 2016. After all, it’s been six months since my last prediction post and a lot has changed. So, what is the price per pound on refrigerant … Read more
I wrote in a previous article about how India has finally come out in favor of phasing out HFC refrigerants under the Montreal Protocol. (Former article is here.) Well now India has formally submitted an amendment to the United Nations to amend the Montreal Protocol to include HFC refrigerants. This amendment was submitted a week … Read more
Greetings ladies and gentlemen! Today we will be taking the time to review Robinair’s TIF9010A refrigerant scale. The TIF9010A brings great scale performance and reliability in a compact and easily transferable case. It can weigh any refrigerant in the market today and boasts the greatest resolution in the industry. It can be found on Amazon.com … Read more
DuPont refrigerants is no more. Let that sink in for a second. OK, ready? Instead of DuPont Refrigerant you now have Chemours Refrigerant. In 2013 DuPont announced that they would be separating their refrigerant division into a completely new company called ‘The Chemours Company.’ This new company would be completely independent and separate from DuPont. … Read more
Late last year the Obama administration announced that they were partnering with various companies across the country in transitioning away from HFC refrigerants and instead using new climate friendly alternatives. Now, this measure was voluntary. No one had to sign on, but I would assume the companies who did sign on did this for the … Read more
There has been a big push over the past couple years to replace R-404A and other HFC refrigerants with alternatives. The push comes from HFCs having a larger Global Warming Potential, or GWP. GWP is compared against Carbon Dioxide which has a GWP of 1. R-404A has a GWP of 3,943. Obviously, there is quite the difference … Read more
Well folks, the last big ball to drop has finally hit for HFCs. It’s only a matter of time now before they are phased out just as CFCs/HCFCs were. This Thursday India declared that they are in favor of phasing out HFC refrigerants and that they are in favor of adding an amendment to the … Read more
Russia has seized over twenty tons of R-22 imported in boxes of R-134a. R-22 was banned by the Montreal Protocol in 2010 and is scheduled to be phased out across the world by 2020. The production and importation of R-22 is strictly regulated and persons can face serious consequences if they do not abide by … Read more
Well folks it looks like the automotive refrigerant market is going to be split into two. Today, most everybody is still using R-134a as the main refrigerant for automotive applications. If you have been working on newer cars you may have seen some vehicles with the HFO 1234YF systems. R-134a is being phased out across … Read more