Innovation can improve people’s lives in many ways, not least by creating products that reduce the environmental load while making daily life more comfortable.
One good example is the development of eco-friendly refrigerants for vehicle air conditioners. Drawing on the Group’s expertise in fluoro-chemical and volume production technologies, AGC recently became the world’s first company to develop, create and utilize production technology for the next-generation refrigerant in automotive air conditioners.
Innovative solution
Called HFO-1234yf, this new fluorinated solvent provides equivalent refrigerant performance to conventional hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) products, but with a drastically lower environmental burden.
In fact HFO-1234yf has a global warming potential (GWP ) at least 1,300 times lower than conventional products, as well as an atmospheric life of only 10.5 days, which is 500 times shorter. Unsurprisingly, automakers in Europe and throughout the world are keen to use this new product to help them meet new energy and environmental standards.
As the sale of new vehicles in Europe gathers strength in 2016, it’s good to know that many of them will be lightening the environmental burden when we flip on the air conditioner.