30 July
OSLO,
Press Release

Bohn Mexico, one of the best-known suppliers of refrigeration components in North America, has elected to replace its copper tubes with aluminium tubing from Hydro. The substitution of materials will affect about one-third of Bohn’s production of evaporators in the heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration market.

Bohn Mexico will convert in the short term its copper-based solutions to aluminium tubes manufactured by Hydro’s aluminium precision tubing plant in Reynosa, Mexico. The conversion will cover three different sizes of tubes and will increase Hydro’s deliveries to Bohn Mexico to appoximately 150,000 pounds — around 68,000 kilograms — per year.

Bohn points to several factors for its decision to replace copper with aluminium. These include:

- Lighter units
-Improved corrosion design
- Opportunities for new cooling technologies, including parallel flows with MPE tubes
- Cost savings

"Bohn sees this change as leading to a significant technological benefit to its broad product range," says Salvador Biosca, who leads Hydro’s aluminium precision tubing activities. "For us, this is a success story that couldn’t have been possible without the vast technical knowledge of Bohn and their sense of innovation in a very competitive environment."

Biosca notes that Bohn Mexico has assigned a specific part of its operations exclusively for the production of aluminium evaporators.

Bohn Mexico was established in 1994 as a joint venture between the Mexican company Frigus and US-based Heatcraft, and was originally known as Frigus Bohn. Today, the company is one of the largest suppliers of refrigeration components and serpentines in Mexico, focused mainly on technology and innovation. The company markets its products throughout the Americas.

"This is the first major company in Mexico to switch from copper to aluminium tubes for drop-in solutions in the HVAC&R market," says Biosca. "We’re pleased they selected Hydro as supplier."

Hydro is the global market leader in the field of aluminium solutions for automotive and non-automotive heat transfer applications, including air-conditioning systems.

Hydro’s precision tubing unit has about 1,200 employees at manufacturing facilities in Asia, Europe, North America and South America.