The industry is facing unprecedented challenges caused by impurities entering the refrigerant bank through counterfeit or otherwise illegally imported refrigerants.
This is in addition to the unlabelled installation of refrigerants for systems not designed for their use.
In fact, one of the biggest problems facing the industry today is the proliferation of systems topped up with hydrocarbons, according to Michael Bennett, general manager of Refrigerant Reclaim Australia (RRA).
“A significant contributor to impurities in the refrigerant bank was the carbon price, which led to higher levels of retention, recycling, and reuse of refrigerants,” he said.
“We fully support recycling, reclamation, and reuse but it is vital to determine the purity of the recovered refrigerant.
“Recovery cylinders that become contaminated propagate further contamination when used to service other systems. It is no longer sufficient to assume the refrigerant in a system is pure.”
While electronic identification equipment is readily available, investment in this technology is not considered as an essential part of a servicing toolkit.
“Until that attitude changes by culture or regulation, the detrimental effects of contaminated refrigerant to equipment, performance and safety will continue to spread,” Bennett said.
Three to five per cent of refrigerant sent for destruction is hydrocarbons. Although the processing centre has been designed to destroy gas cocktails, the increased use of hydrocarbons causes potential processing risks that require changes to technology and work practices.
“Program contributors cannot safely decant refrigerant contaminated with hydrocarbons into larger cylinders, causing storage and logistics problems associated with accommodating numerous small contaminated cylinders, which must be kept in a cage,” Bennett explained. “Until recently recovery cylinders were not rated for flammables and most in use still are not.”
This means RRA must transport contaminated cylinders separately using costlier hazardous goods vehicles and work practices.
Each tonne of hydrocarbon refrigerant collected costs RRA $25,000 but RRA receives no funding from hydrocarbon refrigerant suppliers.
This is a challenge that isn't likely to disappear anytime soon as the bank of flammable refrigerants such as R32 is expected to grow to 20,000 tonnes in the next 10 to 15 years.
“Operational changes to collection processes and the development of an intrinsically safe handling and destruction plant for flammable refrigerants such as R32 will pose a challenge in years to come,” Bennett said.
Overall, he said the amount of refrigerant being recovered will continue to grow with the annual volume exceeding 500 tonnes again in three years. Despite these challenges RRA continues to deliver successful results.
“Work by industry in Australia and around the world has resulted in a 10 per cent reduction in atmospheric chlorine since the 1990s,” Bennett said.
“Recovery of the ozone layer has begun over Antarctica and Australia is on track to return to 1980 benchmark levels by the middle of this century.”
Australia's refrigerant reclaim program relies on contributors. The program comprises 17 bulk importers and more than 1100 importers of pre-charged equipment.
Companies that import less than 100 kilograms per year pay a flat annual fee while those that import larger amounts are charged on a per-kilogram basis each quarter.
In 2014/2015 bulk importers contributed $6.3 million in levies and equipment importers contributed $5.4 million.
Bennett said wholesalers and collection agents are a vital part of the supply chain for the return of refrigerants to RRA for destruction.
“Their number has grown over the years, providing improved access to the program for contractors,” he said.
In 2015 an agreement was reached with a new destruction service provider.
The capacity for fluorocarbon destruction in Australia now exceeds 800 tonnes per annum and this agreement will be sufficient for the next five years, according to the RRA’s annual report.
“The RRA has commenced planning to upgrade its entire handling and destruction operations in readiness for an increase in recoveries of flammable refrigerants such as R32 and R1234yf,” the report said.
“Since 2013 the proportion of HFCs recovered and destroyed by RRA has overtaken HCFCs, while the decline in CFCs will continue as the amount of older equipment being decommissioned diminishes.
“Almost all HCFCs recovered are R22 and around half of all HFCs recovered are R134a.”
