UK: With a growing interest in the use of flammable refrigerants, the British Refrigeration Association (BRA), has produced a guide to these gases, their use, application and safety and training requirements.
The guide covers hydrocarbons, HFOs and flammable HFCs and provides information on the flammability issues associated with these refrigerants to end-users, building owners, specifiers, end-users and contractors. Prepared by training and consultancy company Cool Concerns, the document is designed to provide an introduction to flammable refrigerants and provides links to sources of further information.

The guide, which can be downloaded from the FETA website (www.feta.co.uk/associations/bra/publications), comes at a time of mounting evidence of a move towards the use of flammable refrigerants in Europe.

While hydrocarbons have become very popular in stand-alone, plug-in commercial refrigerators, a number of companies are also known to be looking at the new 'mildly flammable' HFO refrigerants R1234yf and ze. Earlier this month commercial catering refrigeration equipment manufacturer Precision announced the launch of a blast chiller running on 1234ze and leading air conditioning manufacturer Daikin said it would be introducing the 'mildly flammable' HFC R32 into its new equipment launches in Japan. Propane is becoming increasingly popular in China for use in small split systems and the USA is also expanding the use of hydrocarbons in plug-in refrigeration equipment.