1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane

Europe's adoption of natural refrigerants will be greatly impacted by the finalization of the EU's PFAS restrictions under the European Chemical Agency, ECHA, which Martini expects to take effect in 2029.

That will eventually ban the use of HFO-1234YF, the predominant F-gas used in car thermal management systems currently, and the replacement for HFC-134A being phased down globally under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.

Martini noted that both CO2 and propane systems are a bit more expensive than HFO-1234YF systems.

Compared to HFO-1234YF systems, CO2 requires completely new components but potentially the same configuration.

In China, the emphasis is on cost, which will affect the adoption of natural refrigerants, Martini said.

Anything that is not cost-efficient is put aside right now.

As a result, in 2029, when China will start banning HFC-134A, Martini does not think China will skip HFO-1234YF to natural refrigerants right away.

They will very likely become a follower in the use of naturals, he said.

Having VI on significantly reduced the compressor RPMs and enabled the system to meet all of the set capacity targets in heating and cooling across a larger ambient range, Klein said, With VI off, we could not meet all the capacity targets.

In 2024, Ford introduced VI heat pump technology for EVs globally using synthetic refrigerants R1234YF and R134A.

However, the automaker sees propane as the preferred refrigerant for future battery EVs and is working to develop a safe and efficient TMS using R290, according to Klein.

The design.

As automotive AC technology evolves, independent repair shops need to understand how refrigerant choices affect their service capabilities and the opportunities ahead.

Today, we're talking about R1234YF, what shops need to know about servicing these systems, and the emerging conversation around retrofitting eligible R134A vehicles.

Joining me is Natalie Dixon of Chemours, a global chemical company focused on developing refrigerant solutions for the automotive aftermarket.

Natalie is here to discuss the current R1234YF service landscape, important considerations for technicians, and what Chemours has planned for APEX.

The more comfortable technicians become with R1234YF service, the less it becomes this new or intimidating thing.

It simply becomes another service capability your shop can offer.

And there's also a growing interest around potentially retrofitting eligible R134A vehicles to R1234YF.

So at a high level, what should technicians understand about the retrofit procedure? Why is this development important for the aftermarket?

This proposal would push those dates back, or that date back, to the end of December 2027.

And the proposal would also give more time for companies to use TCE as a feedstock for manufacturing HFC-134A, the refrigerant that's long been used in air conditioning for are cars and trucks and in domestic and commercial air conditioning systems, but it itself is being phased down due to its high global warming potential.

Well, we'll stick with the U.S. for the next story, where we'll head to Maine, the pine tree state.

And yes, Maine's state flag even features an eastern white pine.

EPA proposes another year for TCE processing and wastewater.

The proposed change covers specific processing uses, related wastewater disposal, and one HFC-134A phase down step, while the manufacturing ban and worker protections stay in place.

The US Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, has proposed giving chemical processors another year to stop several uses of trichloroethylene, TCE, the industrial solvent it restricted in twenty twenty-four, along with related wastewater disposal.

The proposal was published on October fourteenth, and comments are due November thirteenth.

That includes its role as a process solvent in battery manufacturing, polymer fiber spinning, fluoroelastomer and Alcantara production, caprolactam extraction, and beta-cyclodextrin precipitation.

The second covers disposal of TCE from those activities to industrial pretreatment, industrial treatment, or publicly owned treatment works.

A third change involves HFC-134A, a refrigerant made using TCE as an intermediate.

The step requiring producers to cut TCE feedstock to seventy-five percent of their baseline would move from June seventh, twenty twenty-seven to the end of that year.

...

R134A.

And I had...

I did, I, I remember, like, I, I did this manually because this was before I had TechMetrix, but I had 10 people show up from that for the oil changes.

That's good.

Now they use something else called 134A, which has no chlorine.

See, it was the chlorine.

What would happen, up in the stratosphere, you have these ice particles.

From air cooling to liquid cooling, we have participated in the construction and operation of nearly a hundred data centers and have the full process integration and general contracting capability for large-scale data center cooling systems.

Which refrigerants are used in your data center chillers today, and do you see natural refrigerant chillers as viable? NL: R134a is widely used for data center cooling in our projects in China.

R1234ze, CO2, and R513a are feasible alternatives.

Ammonia has already been applied in data centers in Denmark, and at present dozens of ammonia semi-hermetic screw compressor units are under testing in European data center projects.

You wanna verify the problem first because I have a feeling that it's not gonna be any of the components that you're changing regardless.

Uh, what I would recommend is he can go to an Advance Auto Parts store and he can buy a large can of R134a refrigerant-

Mm-hmm

... that will have a, uh, a hose attached to it.

It is definitely the, that-

Really?

... you use the, yeah, the R134a refrigerant.

Uh, people like to call it Freon, but you know, Freon is necessarily, that was more of a, a brand name than anything else.

Yeah.

Maybe they're h- maybe they're huffing R134A.

Oh.

More of an R12 guy myself.