How do they destroy contaminated refrigerant?

[halfcan]

I know when you reclaim refrigerant such as R-134a from a system, once returned it can be recycled properly, and re-sold. I've been told that when you take either a contaminated refrigerant back to a wholesaler, or a cylinder consisting of 'mixed' refrigerant, the whole cylinder including the refrigerant inside is incinerated.

Is this true?

[Mark]

I believe the contents of the cylinder are yes...

Mark

[monkey spanners]

Think A gas have got a big distiling thingy they can seperate mixed refrigerants with now, was in one of the mags a while back.

found this,

http://www.edie.net/products/view_entry.asp?id=4877&title=Refrigerant+Reclaim

[Luke.G]

yeah i think also HARP INTL have a seperation plant to process mixed refrigerant aswell, better than it being incinerated!

[superslim007]

Some refrigerants can be separated by distillation columns but it can be very expensive and often uneconomical, all contaminated refrigerants go to Southampton where they are incinerated at very high temperature, the remaining burnt gases go through scrubs/filters to remove any further contaminants leaving non hazardous fumes to atmosphere

[Rob White]

.

The recovered refrigerant in the smaller "dumpy" size bottles is almost certainly destroyed
(burnt at high temperature under pressure) but dependant on the company and the amount
and type of refrigerant it could be reprosessed and reused.

A gas in Bristol do have the facility to do this.

Regards

Rob

.

[christopherludw]

With the cost of many refrigerants going up, the incentive to separate mixed refrigerants has gone way up as well. Many reclaim facilities, supply houses, and salvage yards are sending them to companies that have separation capability. I work for Diversified Pure Chem in Rhome, TX. We have been separating mixed refrigerants for 5 year (the column was operational over 10 years ago). There are only a small number of guys in the country who can separate mixed refrigerants, and I don't think anyone, outside of the manufacturers, has our capability when it comes to really badly mixed refrigerants.

[Tesla]

Chris
That's cool. I would hope with all this extra tax we get charged in Ausie that the manufacturers would be forced to clean & seperate refrigerant rather than burn it & no doubt create carbon emmissions. At this stage most refrigerant is incinerated here. I have heard of a company many years ago in Brisbane who had a still and I operated a still in Sydney for a company I worked for. It's all revenue at the end of the day.