We all know that the price of copper is skyrocketing. As the material of choice in the air conditioning industry what are the options for the future? Aluminium is cheaper for a multitude of reasons, but just how good a material is it for air conditioning?
Who could have predicted what has happened to the price of copper over the last few years? We now see prices over $10,000 for a tonne of copper and prices have gone up by another 25% in just the last two years. What is next for those industries who rely on copper in the manufacturing process? For the air conditioning and heating industry will it be refrigerant aluminium tubing?
As a response to these cost increases many companies are looking to refrigerant aluminium tubing as an alternative in air conditioning. Of course copper remains an excellent material for air conditioning, but aluminium is looking like a fantastic alternative which is far more cost effective.
So why is aluminium piping cheaper? As well as being a cheaper material, the dies used in the manufacture of refrigerant aluminium tubing are cheaper to make themselves. There is much less waste in the manufacturing process as the dies can be used repeatedly, rather than being thrown away like the ides used when manufacturing copper pipes. Its not just money that can be saved though, reducing waste is far better for the environment.
Of course it isnt just all about the money, there are other benefits too. Using aluminium in air conditioning can actually be better than copper, as well as being cheaper. During building it is far easier to work with aluminium compare to traditional materials because it is much lighter. It also has a much higher strength to weight ratio; so it is strong enough to be effective in its role, but at the same time it is more easily moulded than copper. As a flexible material you can use aluminium piping in many scenarios where copper piping could not be used.
We have seen the use of aluminium grow commercially in many different industries but in the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration it is certainly the major material of the future. Extruded tubing, air-conditioning units and heat exchangers are just a few of the places where we can expect to see aluminium used in the future.
How is aluminium piping an improvement over copper?
We have seen huge increases in the price of copper over the last few years and at the moment there is no sign of this trend ending.
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