International. Chemours recently received the American Chemistry Council's Sustainability Leadership Award for the development of its Opteon refrigerant products.
Chemours developed Opteon to help its customers meet the growing market demands for high-performance, more environmentally sustainable refrigerants and blends, driven by increasingly stringent regulations on global warming around the world, as well as changing consumer preferences. Opteon refrigerants have zero ozone depletion potential (ODP) and very low global warming potential (GWP).
"Our development of Opteon is a perfect example of how the power of chemistry can help solve some of the world's greatest challenges," said Mark Vergnano, president and CEO of Chemours. "With the commissioning of our new $300 million production facility in Corpus Christi, Texas, we have tripled our company's capacity for Opteon, allowing us to meet growing customer demand while investing and creating new manufacturing jobs here in the United States."
Gaining momentum
Demand for more sustainable refrigerants has accelerated in recent years as the United States, Japan, and several European countries have implemented stricter environmental standards, starting first with mobile air conditioning and then expanding into commercial refrigeration and residential and commercial air conditioning.
In mobile air conditioning, Chemours expects more than 145 million vehicles on the road to use Opteon YF (HFO-1234yf) refrigerants by the end of 2020. Compared to previous generation hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, Opteon YF reduces the environmental impact of GWP by more than 99%. Opteon YF is based on hydrofluorine olefin (HFO) chemistry and has a GWP of less than 1. By comparison, the most common refrigerant, HFC-134a, has a GWP of 1,300.
For commercial refrigeration applications in Europe, Opteon XP40 has been one of the main adaptation gases for R404A/R507, particularly in the supermarket refrigeration sector. Opteon XP40 has played a pivotal role since 2015 in enabling the market to comply with fluorinated gas regulations.
In addition, several global companies have recently selected Opteon products for residential and commercial air conditioning applications, including Carrier for their residential and light commercial packaged air conditioning products in North America, Carrier Transicold Europe, Mitsubishi Electric Hydronics and IT Cooling Systems SpA (Mehits), Johnson Controls and E-Mart, the largest hypermarket chain in Korea.
In addition, last year, Chemours announced a multi-year partnership with the National Hockey League focused on providing Opteon refrigerants to hockey rinks throughout North America. The partnership supports NHL's Greener Rinks initiative, a league-wide program committed to sharing sustainable business practices with community track owners and operators.
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