Cold Link Africa November/December 2018 | Página 6

NEWS
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
The cylinders were placed on a scale to ensure that they would not be filled to the brim.
“Rapid Recovery has been gaining some
great exposure in the local HVAC&R
industry,” explains Michael Labacher of
A-Gas, who was also on site to make sure
things run smoothly. “We have seen a
steady increase in the number of clients
requesting this service over the past few
months. With more focus being placed on
the legal and environmental implications
of releasing gases into the atmosphere,
this solution is also very cost-effective,
as it saves a huge amount of a qualified
technician’s time that could be used more
effectively carrying out other tasks, plus it
gets the contractor’s client up and running
much faster.”
As such, Cool Tech called in A-Gas to try out
their new Rapid Recovery service. A-Gas
arrived on site with two 1-tonne drums,
carefully placing one on a scale before
starting the job. It is important to measure
the refrigerant being recovered, explained
Labacher. Many people fill the cylinder to
the top, but this could be risky as you don’t
know how clean recovered gas is. That is
why they only put in 850kg of refrigerant
before switching over to another drum.
With one technician on site to monitor
and manage the process, A-Gas quickly
got to work and managed to recover
a total of 1 313kg of R134a that same
afternoon still. They could recover liquid
Micah Kupfer of Cool Tech taking a keen interest in the process.
refrigerant at a speedy rate of 100kg per
10 minutes.
They then took the refrigerant away to
assess it, giving Cool Tech a reclamation
certificate of safe responsible handling for
it. If the refrigerant can be cleaned and
reused, they will do that. If not, it will be
suitably and safely disposed of. A-Gas issues
a refrigerant buy-back credit after the
recovery is done, making this process even
more cost-effective.
“I was so impressed at how professional
and efficient the whole process was,”
said Kupfer afterwards. “I think that this
is the way to going forward — it’s a lot
faster than how we used to recover. I
recommend that all HVAC&R companies
use this system.”
With the refrigerant taken care of, Cool
Tech could immediately get to work on fixing
the leaks and other system issues before
filling the system with refrigerant again.
“We see this service becoming a
necessity in the market and to date, we
have had fantastic feedback, especially
from clients needing to produce a
reclamation certificate for the ‘green’
footprint,” explains Labacher.
A-Gas is looking at rolling out more
teams across the country in the new year to
assist contractors with safely (and quickly)
recovering refrigerant on site. CLA