World News

Industry news and insights from Europe and around the World

UK News

Latest news and developments in the United Kingdom

Products

Keep up-to-date with the latest new products and technology

Features

General articles, applications and industry analysis

No risk, but Germans call for further tests

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.

 

Latest News

18th March 2024

Joint venture adopts Epta brand

ITALY: All activities under the recently announced Epta and Viessmann Refrigeration joint venture are to operate under the Epta brand.
18th March 2024

Low carbon heat briefing

UK: The SIRACH network is hosting a half-day briefing at London’s iconic Shard to share the findings of the Lot-Net project. 
18th March 2024

UK heat pump uptake too slow

UK: The UK must achieve an eleven-fold increase in heat pump installations if it is to hit government targets of 600,000 heat pumps installed per year by 2028.
18th March 2024

Refrigeration’s star engineer Forbes Pearson dies

UK: Stephen Forbes Pearson, co-founder of Star Refrigeration and one of the world's greatest refrigeration engineers, has died at the age of 92.
17th March 2024

132 Güntner dry coolers for Red Sea project

SAUDI ARABIA: German manufacturer Güntner has supplied 132 dry coolers, each with 18 fans, to a 32,500TR district cooling project in Saudi Arabia.
17th March 2024

NZ professor brings fridge workshops to UK

UK: Don Cleland, a professor of process engineering at Massey University in New Zealand, is hosting a series of refrigeration workshops in London this summer.