38TWENTYFOURSEVENBIOPHARMA Issue 1 / March 2025 STERLING PHARMA SOLUTIONS Cooling technology is a critical component of pharmaceutical manufacturing, as it aids in controlling process temperatures, keeping equipment in good working order, and maintaining environmental conditions on-site for product storage and worker conditions. With manufacturing costs increasing and an onus on the industry to leverage sustainable, energy-efficient practices, organisations are assessing multiple options to accelerate implementation appropriate solutions. A number of substances and technologies have been utilised in the area of cooling over the decades, but recently, ammonia has become the subject of increased interest, because of both its relative efficiency and lower environmental impact compared to other refrigerants. Comparing ammonia-based chilling to other methods Despite ammonia having been utilised in cooling for nearly two centuries, increased focus on environmental sustainability has been a key contributor to its recent resurgence, which has seen the expectations of the global market for ammoniabased refrigerants to reach US$86.5 million by 2030, at a CAGR of 5.7% from US$55.5 million in 2022.1 This is driven by a growth in demand for consumer goods and the use of cold-chain solutions, and in particular, the gradual phase out of previously widely adopted synthetic-based cooling methods, due to regulatory issues surrounding their ozone-depleting potential. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are proven as excellent refrigerants that are chemically stable, and non-flammable. CFC air conditioning gases were first used in the 1930s, but are now known to be acutely toxic, while it was later discovered that CFCs have a negative impact on the ozone layer. As a result, their use was increasingly minimised following the implementation of the 1987 Montreal Protocol. HCFC refrigerants have subsequently been used as substitutes for CFCs, but they too were included in the phase-out of chlorine-based refrigerants due to their ozone depleting properties. In the United States, the use of CFCs has now been completely eliminated, while the use of HCFCs will end by 2030. In the UK, both CFCs and HCFCs have already been banned,
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