Back in early 2015, I began working with some clients who were questioning their having to enter into the Process Safety arena because of a new refrigerant that was going into automobiles. Early in our discussions I was appalled that this flammable refrigerant had been “marketed and sold” with the description of being a “mildly flammable” gas by, what I once considered to be a highly reputable chemical company. As someone who has been around HAZMATs since the late 1980’s the term “mildly flammable” was new to me, as I had never seen any flammables or even combustibles classed or categorized as “mildly flammable”. As soon as I received the (M)SDS for this material I quickly realized that this refrigerant was indeed an “Extremely Flammable” Gas (e.g. Category 1 Flammable). This client was in a situation where the refrigerant manufacturer and the manufacturer of the bulk tank skid unit had decided to label the tank with an NFPA Flammable rating of “1”. This caused tons of problems and caused much confusion for this industry and once again caused me to be labeled “crazy”, “safety extremist”, and the worst… “consultant just trying to get more work”.
It took two (2) years, but HFO-1234yf is now an NFPA Flammable “4”