Honeywell has announced that appliance manufacturer Haier will adopt its new low-global-warming-potential Solstice Liquid Blowing Agent in China to help insulate and increase the energy efficiency of its refrigerators.

According to Honeywell, blowing agents such as Solstice LBA allow closed-cell polyurethane foam insulation to expand and provide the majority of the foam’s excellent insulating properties. Solstice LBA can help home appliance manufacturers achieve an 8-10 percent energy efficiency improvement compared with cyclopentane, which is widely used as a blowing agent in appliance insulation.

Business director for Honeywell Fluorine Products, Sanjeev Rastogi, said that Honeywell has been working with Haier for the past three years under Haier’s Open Innovation System to transition to Solstice LBA. 

Solstice LBA has an ultra-low global warming potential of 1, which is 99.9 percent lower than HFC-245fa, a commonly-used blowing agent.

In a statement Haier said: “Our collaboration with Honeywell is more than just a sourcing relationship – our Open Innovation System has created a win-win partnership that is bringing quality and energy-efficient products to customers.”  

The foam insulation used in the Haier refrigerators is formulated and manufactured by Dow Chemical.  Asia-Pacific technical service and development manager at Dow, Si-Ho Lee, said: “The use of Honeywell’s Solstice LBA in our foam is helping Haier improve the energy efficiency of its refrigerators, which is beneficial not only to customers and manufacturers, but to society as a whole.”

Solstice LBA is being adopted by residential and commercial appliance manufacturers worldwide to reduce their environmental footprint and comply with environmental and energy efficiency regulations. Solstice LBA is non-flammable and is not a volatile organic compound. It is approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency under the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) Program and is also registered under the European Union’s REACH program. Honeywell’s new world-scale production capacity manufacturing plant for Solstice LBA started up in May 2014.