The Chemours Co. (Wilmington, Del.; www.chemours.com) has broken ground on the company’s new HFO-1234yf production facility. The new facility, located at the Chemours Corpus Christi plant in Ingleside, Texas, will triple the company’s world-leading capacity for its HFO-1234yf-based-products, which are low global warming potential (GWP) and better for the environment. Chemours will sell the low global warming potential refrigerant products and blends manufactured at this new plant under its Opteon trade name.
“This new facility represents a significant step forward for Chemours, as it demonstrates our commitment to providing low GWP solutions to the refrigerants industry,” said Mark Vergnano, Chemours president and CEO. “We see our Opteon products as the future for this industry since they provide the optimal balance of properties necessary to transition the world away from HFCs, the previous generation of refrigerants.”
“We’ve already seen tremendous adoption of our Opteon™ low GWP refrigerants; and, it’s estimated that by the end of 2017, there will be over 50 million cars on the road globally using low GWP HFO-1234yf refrigerant,” said Paul Kirsch, President of Chemours Fluoroproducts. “Our market projections also suggest that our Opteon™ refrigerants could be used in well over 10,000 supermarket and commercial refrigeration systems by 2020.”
This new facility will use an innovative, patented process to manufacture Opteon YF, Chemours’HFO-1234yf mobile refrigerant product used in automotive air conditioning, and Opteon™ refrigerant blends which are used across a range of applications. This investment will create the world’s largest facility for manufacturing hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs), and the location will allow Chemours to efficiently serve the growing market in North America and Europe, as well as the rest of the world. Currently, Chemours is the capacity leader for HFO-1234yf-based products, a position that is expected to be maintained as a result of this investment.