Refrigerant recovery fact or farse.

[mad fridgie]

In NZ we have a $1 per Kg of refirgerant levy for approx 15years, this fund has millions of dollars in it, which is to be used for the destruction/recycling of recovered refrigerants. To date very little refrigerant has been returned back by trade to be destroyed (hence the fund value)
Every company has the reclaim units, recovery bottles and in many cases is permently in the service vans. I suggest that they are just collecting dust. This also seems to be the case when i visit the UK and Australia.
Are we infact just kidding ourselves and others that we are doing the right thing. Are we infact doing more damage by permently dragging around an extra 30KG of basically useless weight. "thats a lot of fuel"
I know on the big systems it is commercially viable to recover the refrigerant, but smaller, it is not.
Take your modern AC work, it is almost impossible to know your charge, after a leak. What is recommended, remove charge weigh in the correct amount. Do you you vac out your recovery bottle into another recovery bottle, wash with a cleaning agent, re vac to atmosphere, recover the remaining refrigerant out of the AC unit, . Then re introduce the recovered refrigerant (now knowing its weight) and then add the required new amount. I think not!
I am curious to know what % of refrigerant is returned incompared to what is purchased around the world in different countries

[mikeref]

Hi Mad. You know then that Australia has its regulations enforced by Arctic and the pages of info that must be completed. Refrigerant used / refrigerant purchased / amount reclaimed, and on it goes. I bought reclaim bottle off auto a/c company but could not send it through Heatcraft, have to rent one forever off them.(Another one to the collection of rented bottles). Refrigerant purchased = amount used but amount recovered still has to be accounted for. Small jobs are the worst. People who want to dump their fridges have to have certificate of refrigerant removed, you know how much time it takes to remove say, 180 grams out of fridge with cold compressor?? Oil wants to come out as well, then fridge owner won't agree to pay for this so i don't do this for anyone now... one bottle for R410a, another for R22,R134a,R404,507 etc, another for dedicated gas type recover and return to system, so a stack of them there. Alot of time involved but one never knows when an auditor from Arctic may show up to check records.. Mike.

[Fri3Oil System]

You will always find some interests when referring to laws and regulations. Today, anyone is able to recycle the recovered gas. This is, to separate it from the real waste, which is the oil (acids, etc) Once the refrigerant is recycled/cleaned, it is not a residue anymore, and it can be reused.
In Europe, and, at least in Spain and some other countries here around, only an authorised waste dealer can regenerate the product in order to resell it, or they can incinerate the product in case it would be more convenient.(case of a mix of unknown gases i.e.)

The thing is, nowadays there is technology available for the gas handlers (RAC installers, mainteners) that allow them to recycle gases to a good quality, and avoid this incineration or regeneration costs. So, waste dealers, who normally are also gas manufacturers (distributors) are not happy with these new technologies and products, since their clients just buy much less refrigerant than they've been doing up to now. Specially from now on, when R22 and MO will start dissappearing from scene, the use of POE will increase the need of recycling the refrigerants, and also, properly clean the circuits to avoid future contamination problems.

Regards,

Nando.

[Tesla]

Hi Mad
I did a small chiller with a burnout during the last month and reclaimed then sent it to the supplier which I think cost our company to get destroyed. 8 years ago I worked for a company where I used a big still with refrigeration to clean R11 and R123 - Basic stuff create a vapor and condense at the required temp and press then filter with burnout driers. This works just like a fractional distiller, it's what got me really interested in refrigeration when I started distilling beer to make spirits (when I was a teenager). We can reuse the gas in the existing system and clean it up with burnout driers and oil changes carefully unless a really bad burnout has occurred. A guy from work was telling me last week there are temporary reclaim bags (like a wine cask bag) which then needs to be transferred into a cylinder for domestic work. These extra costs of processing and time are added to the job cost in Ausie. I think there are even really small reclaim units which are light weight for domestic use.
But personally I think global warming is a crock of *&^% as with green house effect - as a volcano is magnitudes of order on refrigerants. So I have to say the levy is revenue collection and political spin. I do comply with the regulations because it would cost me much more on penalties, at the end of the day when I work for a company I don't get paid enough to break the law of lie.
I am in the process of getting licensed for arctick and I think it will cost well over $3000 because I have NZ qualifications. Some of the changes are that I should use ball valves on the end of my gauge lines and keep the lines full of refrigerant when not in use. This is a bit different to when I first started and was taught how to purge systems if the leak was on the high side (lol).

[Fri3Oil System]

Hi Mad
I did a small chiller with a burnout during the last month and reclaimed then sent it to the supplier which I think cost our company to get destroyed.

In Spain, incineration costs are about 9/10€/kg, what about over there(and other EU countries)?

[mad fridgie]

It is the recovery at the coal face on the millions of systems with only a few Kgs of refrigerant, the vast majority in my opinion. It has to be recovered before it can be treated in any form.

[Fri3Oil System]

It is the recovery at the coal face on the millions of systems with only a few Kgs of refrigerant, the vast majority in my opinion. It has to be recovered before it can be treated in any form.

Hi Mad,

You can recover it and recycle it in the same process. A simple distillation allows you to reuse that gas again. In Europe, you can reuse it in other installations(at least that is the interpretation of the E.R.1005/2009 we make in Spain and some other countries). Specially this is useful to take advantage of all the R22 existing already at plants.

A refrigerant which has not been recycled/cleaned/regenerated is a residue, just because it contains oils and other substances, such as acids.

[mad fridgie]

It is not the process, of recycling, but is the actual effort to recycle (in any form) from the trade, happening? or dare i say, on the small systems, "oops" the flare has just broken, need to go to my van, to get repair kit, fit gauges, no refrigerant left, repair flare and original leak, no need to recover?
As a practical engineer, I have not seen any one, use a recovery machine on a small service job, In the UK, NZ and Aus. I am not just limiting this to one man bands, but many major refrigerant contractors. The recovery process just does not seem to occur. It is not about haveing a licence, the equipment, the paperwork (which is pretty easy to fabricate), is recovery actually happening as a standard practice, not the be confused with legal practice

[Fri3Oil System]

I see... if we believe in all this climate change or Ozone layer things, we should be more environmentally conscious and recover every gram of gas.
For example, we do include in our price list a small recovery unit. Our system keeps about 200 or 300gr of refrigerant after each use, in order to avoid air coming into the system. If you are working with R22 and next job is to recover R410A, you have to recovery those 200gr from the machine. That's how things should be done.

At the end, gases are not only environment enemies, but are not a cheap thing to throw away. Many small (split) units, make a big amount of gas/money.

Regards,
Nando.