A-Gas International, one of the world’s largest independent suppliers of refrigerants, environmental services, and specialty gases and chemicals, announced that it has acquired RemTec International, a leading refrigerant reclamation company, and Coolgas Inc., a leading independent supplier and distributor of refrigerants.
In response to the accelerated phaseout of HCFCs, Indianapolis-based refrigerant producer ICOR International has expanded its refrigerant reclamation operations.
It has been an interesting — and complicated — year when it comes to refrigerants. The year began with cutbacks in HCFC production. We had expected there to be about 90 million pounds of virgin R-22 in 2012, down a bit from 2011. But the EPA proposed at the most 80 million pounds and at the least 55 million.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership has honored a number of supermarkets, manufacturers, and individuals with its 2012 GreenChill Awards.
In anticipation of a greater reliance on reclamation, those providing such reclaim services have been looking at ways to serve contractor customers faster and more efficiently. An example is the announcement from Airgas Refrigerants Inc. of what it calls “a new approach and new technology for its reclamation business.”
Airgas Inc. has introduced its new Airgas Refrigatron™ system for large-scale reclamation of used refrigerant gases. Refrigatron is a multiphase system that first allows for the fast analysis and recovery of used refrigerant gases to then be reclaimed to 99.8 percent purity and resold, said the company.
Whether we like it or not, R-22 is going away, and technicians need to look at their best options and solutions to work with the phaseout. One option available to all competent service technicians is to recover and recycle refrigerant.
If and when contractors step up their commitment to reclamation, they will find plenty of places ready to perform the process that brings questionable refrigerant back to ARI-700 purity standards. And contractors will also find plenty of incentives to do so.
What will it take to jump-start more use of reclaimed HCFC-22 to service the huge inventory of equipment running on that refrigerant? The EPA and the dozens of companies offering reclamation services are hoping the most recent announcement of a potential 45 percent reduction in virgin R-22 coming to market.