Chemours Breaks Ground on New U.S. Production Facility for Opteon Refrigerants
The new facility will triple the company’s capacity
WILMINGTON, Del. — The Chemours Co., a global chemistry company in titanium technologies, fluoroproducts, and chemical solutions, announced that it has broken ground on a new HFO-1234yf production facility. The new facility, located at the Chemours Corpus Christi plant in Ingleside, Texas, will triple the company’s capacity for its HFO-1234yf-based-products, which are low-global warming potential (GWP) and better for the environment. Chemours will sell the low GWP refrigerant products and blends manufactured at this new plant under its Opteon™ trade name.
“This new facility represents a significant step forward for Chemours as it demonstrates our commitment to providing low-GWP solutions to the refrigerants industry,” said Mark Vergnano, Chemours president and CEO. “We see our Opteon products as the future for this industry since they provide the optimal balance of properties necessary to transition the world away from hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the previous generation of refrigerants.”
“We’ve already seen tremendous adoption of our Opteon low-GWP refrigerants, and it’s estimated that by the end of 2017, there will be over 50 million cars on the road globally using low-GWP HFO-1234yf refrigerant,” said Paul Kirsch, president of Chemours Fluoroproducts. “Our market projections also suggest that our Opteon refrigerants could be used in well over 10,000 supermarket and commercial refrigeration systems by 2020.”
This new facility will use an innovative, patented process to manufacture Opteon YF, Chemours’ HFO-1234yf mobile refrigerant product used in automotive air conditioning and Opteon refrigerant blends which are used across a range of applications. This investment will create the world’s largest facility for manufacturing hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), and the location will allow Chemours to efficiently serve the growing market in North America and Europe, as well as the rest of the world.
The Opteon refrigerants portfolio from Chemours represents a breakthrough line of low-GWP solutions. They were developed to help meet more stringent global regulations while maintaining or improving performance versus incumbent products. Chemours has commercialized Opteon refrigeration products for use in automotive air conditioning as well as stationary and transport refrigeration and chillers. The first Opteon product commercialized was Opteon YF, or HFO-1234yf, for automotive air conditioning. This refrigerant was developed to enable automakers around the world to meet EU requirements, and it has a GWP of less than one.
The company has a development pipeline of additional Opteon solutions for stationary air conditioning, foam blowing agents and waste heat recovery. For more than 85 years, the fluorochemicals business within Chemours has provided innovative refrigeration and foam blowing agent solutions to meet changing customer needs. Opteon low-GWP products are the latest innovation, offering a long-term solution for our customers along with a reduced impact to the environment. The global adoption of Opteon low-GWP products represents a clear path toward moving the world away from HFCs, which have high-GWP.
For more information, visit www.opteon.com.
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Publication date: 2/15/2017
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