It is estimated that 20 million scroll compressors, covering a
wide range of applications, are currently installed worldwide.
Within the air conditioning and refrigeration industry, there
has been a long standing view that scroll compressors upon
reaching the end of their product lifecycle are unable to be
repaired or remanufactured – and for the end user the only
solution is a new compressor. Traditionally, when a scroll
compressor failed it went straight into a waste bin where the
raw metal would be reprocessed – a very energy intensive job.
The only components saved for re-use were the scroll sets and
then only by some manufacturers. If somehow scroll compressors
could be remanufactured there would be obvious benefits. The
environmental impact would be lessened from the view of waste
disposal and the resources incurred in the original production
process. Steel and most metals can be recycled continuously,
making them some of the most sustainable materials available in
products today. Importantly, each ton