ACR Journal

  • Home
  • UK
  • International
  • Features
    • Blogs
  • What's New?
    • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • Heat Pumps
  • Home
  • UK
  • International
  • Features
    • Blogs
  • What's New?
    • Subscribe
  • Advertise
  • Heat Pumps

Features

Reclamation Plays a Key Role as the F-Gas Quota Declines

24/8/2016

 
A Gas Reclaimed Refrigerant
​Managing Director of A-Gas John Ormerod on how this will affect the industry as the phase-down in HFCs steps up a pace.
​The phase-down of HFCs led by the F-Gas Regulations will put significant pressure on the supply of high GWP refrigerants, particularly in the years beyond 2018 when there are big step-downs in the amount of refrigerant that can be placed on the market. Users of refrigeration and air conditioning equipment have a variety of options to move away from high GWP refrigerants – these fall into three main areas: replace the equipment, retrofit the gas with a lower GWP alternative or rely on reclaimed refrigerant.

The latter will become an increasing part of the supply mix. The European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE) estimates that roughly a quarter of the 2018 shortfall will need to come from reclaimed sources – otherwise there simply won’t be enough refrigerant  on the market to meet demand. So there needs to be enough reclaimed refrigerant around to fill the gap.

​Processing Reclaimed Refrigerant

​There also needs to be significant capacity within the industry to process this reclaimed refrigerant and at A-Gas we are already getting ready for this. We are investing in a new refrigerant separator at our Portbury plant near Bristol – alongside the existing separator we use – this will more than double reclamation capacity at Portbury when it comes into use during the latter part of next year.

A-Gas reclaims thousands of tonnes of refrigerant a year across the world. Following the acquisition of Rapid Recovery in the USA, A-Gas is now arguably the world’s largest reclaimer of refrigerants.
​
In the UK and Europe we need to be in the right place to provide the capacity to handle the changes brought about by F-Gas and be able to process increasing volumes of waste refrigerant. The new equipment in Portbury will separate the mixed refrigerants that come back to us from across Europe, providing a source of supply back into our market.

​Mixed Refrigerant Challenges

​Waste refrigerant is changing all the time with the mix becoming ever more complicated. We are starting to see much higher quantities of mixed refrigerant due to legacy refrigerants like R22 and the phase-out of high GWP refrigerants. These mixes set us new challenges and without separation technology it is almost impossible to return them to the same kind of quality as virgin material and get rid of the impurities and legacy refrigerants that are not needed.

A-Gas is a licensed reclaimer of refrigerants and our quality controls ensure that the reclaimed gas used by our customers is of the same high standard and specification as virgin refrigerant. In simple terms, if it is analysed you will not be able to tell the difference between reclaimed refrigerant and virgin refrigerant. This quality standard is crucial to ensuring reclaimed refrigerants perform identically to virgin refrigerants in systems.

​Recycling before Manufacturing

​Reclamation is a key part of adopting a holistic approach to refrigeration. Recycling is always better than manufacturing new gases and with the case in point where higher GWP refrigerants are being phased out, it makes sense to rely less on manufacture and more on recycling.

If you can recycle the refrigerant already out there then you are making a major contribution to the environmental side.

The industry in the UK is pretty well switched on to reclamation and how it will affect the market. In this respect it is fair to say that levels of compliance with the F-Gas Regulations are better than most European countries.

It is difficult to gauge exactly the true share of reclaimed refrigerant entering the market. Recent figures from Europe have been a little misleading but we do know that in the coming years the figure will grow. The regulations around the use of high GWP refrigerants are getting tighter all the time and there is speculation that HFCs may be brought under the Montreal Protocol.

This in some way will harmonise the direction of a phase out of HFCs across the world but within different timeframes. The approach that Europe has taken in terms of reclaim is being looked at closely in other parts of the world. And we expect to see other countries following a similar strategy to Europe.
A Gas logo
At Chillventa our Business Development Manager for Europe, Norman Solheid, will be presenting a technical seminar Reclamation of Refrigerants – Bridge Over Troubled Waters on Wednesday October 12 (1pm) in Hall 7A (Stand 7A-618). He will explain in detail how reclamation is growing in importance as customers look to fulfil their regulatory and legislative obligations under the F-Gas Regulations.



Comments are closed.

    ACR Features

    Subscribe to the ACR Journal

    Topics

    All
    3-pipe
    A2l
    Aerofoil
    AI
    Air Conditioning
    Air Movement
    Ammonia
    Brazing
    Cabinets
    Chilled Beams
    Chillers
    Cleaning
    Cold Room
    Cold Store
    Commercial
    Companies
    Compliance
    Compressors
    Controls
    Coolers
    Cooling
    Cooling Towers
    Data Centre Cooling
    Distribution Centre
    Domestic
    Doors
    Drains
    DX
    EC Fans
    Electrics
    Energy Efficiency
    Engineering
    ESOS
    Fan Coils
    Fans
    F Gas
    Food
    Food Retail
    Grants
    Heating
    Heat Pump
    Heat Recovery
    Humidification
    HVAC
    Hybrid
    Hydraulics
    IAQ
    Indoor Air Quality
    Industrial
    Installation
    Installer
    Intake Screen
    Kigali
    Leak Detection
    Legionella
    Legislation
    Maintenance
    Middle East
    Out & About
    Phase-down
    Pipework
    Pollution
    Poultry
    Pumps
    Qatar
    Quota
    R32
    R404A
    Refrigerants
    Refrigeration
    Regulations
    Renewable Energy
    Residential
    Restaurant
    Retail
    Safety
    Separator
    Service
    Shelf Edge Technology
    Shopping
    Skills
    Smart
    Standards
    Supermarket
    Support Systems
    Technology
    Temperature Control
    Thermal Door
    Tools
    Training
    Transport Refrigeration
    Two Pipe
    Variable Speed Drive
    Ventilation
    VRF
    Vrv
    Wall Mounted
    Waste
    Water Treatment
    Women In ACR

    Subscribe for Free to the ACR Journal

Follow

Subscribe
Heat Pumps Today
Follow us on social media
Tweets by @ACRJournal

Support

​Cookies
Privacy
Terms of Use
Contact
Advertise

Company

About
The Company
Warners Group Publications
© COPYRIGHT 2016
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.