USA: Midwest Refrigerants, the US company which has devised a process to reclaim refrigerants to their original chemical constituents, is set to bring its first plant on-stream in the early part of next year.
The process, which avoids the costly incineration of unwanted CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs and even the new HFOs, converts the unwanted refrigerants back to their original, source chemicals: 99.99+% anhydrous hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, and carbon dioxide. These can then be reused all for new uses such as hybrid car batteries and electronics or even new refrigerants.

The technology is said to be totally scalable and the first Midwest plant in the US will be able to convert 500,000 pounds (2.5MT) up to 12-15 million pounds (5,500 to 7,500 MT) annually.

The smaller units are skid-mounted and can be moved via truck or shipping container . For countries where there may not be a market for the output products, Midwest is said to have created a variation of the technology, which neutralises the ODSs and GHGs.