Honeywell starts up $300 million automotive refrigerant production facility

Honeywell announced that it has started commercial operations at its new manufacturing plant in Geismar, La., to meet the growing global demand for its next-generation mobile air conditioning refrigerant. With this start-up, the plant has become the world’s largest site for producing HFO-1234yf, sold commercially as Solstice® yf. Solstice yf is an award-winning product that was developed by the company’s team of scientists to meet the needs of the automotive industry to replace R-134a, the most widely used auto refrigerant. Solstice yf has a global-warming-potential (GWP) of less than 1, which is lower than carbon dioxide and 99.9 per cent lower than R-134a, which has a GWP of 1300. R-134a is a hydrofluorocarbon (HFC), which many governments and industries have been looking at phasing out since the early 2000s. “Solstice yf is a breakthrough innovation that is helping the auto industry transition to more environmentally preferable technologies without sacrificing performance,” said Ken Gayer, Vice President and General Manager of Honeywell Fluorine Products.