No risk, but Germans call for further tests
8th August 2013
GERMANY: The German Federal Transport Authority (KBA) has recommended further tests be carried out on the R1234yf after its own risk assessments carried out by TÜV Rheinland proved inconclusive.
Problems over the acceptance of the new low GWP refrigerant replacement for R134a continue to smoulder after the German authority failed to find reasons to classify R1234yf as unsafe but instead has called for further tests to prove its safety.
Tests on four models of car were carried out to industry standards, prompting the KBA to report “no adequate evidence of a serious threat within the meaning of the Product Safety Act.” As a result it recommended that vehicles on the market should not be taken out of service.
However, “in order to guarantee that the regarded test spectrum was not too closely selected,” the KBA decided to carry out further tests “in order to check whether with intensified test conditions cases of danger would be expected.”
Under these tests in two cases hydrogen fluoride was released and in one case the car caught fire.
The KBA has sent an interim report to the European Commission. The final report will be available in autumn this year.
