Asahi Glass Co., Ltd. (Tokyo; www.agc.com) plans to build a new high-efficiency manufacturing plant using proprietary fluorochemical technology at its Chiba Plant in Japan, and start supplying the new refrigerant HFO-1234yf beginning in mid-2015. The refrigerant will be supplied to Honeywell (Morristown, N.J.; www.honeywell.com) for a previously announced refrigerants facility in Louisiana.
HFO-1234yf refrigerant is being increasingly adopted by automakers in Europe and the U.S., due to the need to comply with the Mobile Air Conditioning (MAC) Directivein Europe and Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Regulations in the U.S. Demand for HFO-1234yf is expected to grow rapidly in Japan too, in response to regulations on refrigerants slated to take effect in 2015. Under such circumstances, its global demand is forecasted to expand in the future.