Dometic Cooling Units and Alternative Corrosion Solutions
Since the 1930’s Dometic has done significant research into finding alternative corrosion protection for their absorption refrigerators. This work has included a large in-house commitment together with external cooperation and extensive real life testing of different ideas. This has involved many different alternative inhibitors, structural materials, surface treatment and design parameters.
Dometic has now identified one possible alternative to replace sodium chromate; it’s called “inhibitor 7” and requires further validation. It is therefore not technically feasible for Dometic to offer products with this alternative before the sunset date (i.e. 2029).
Inhibitor 7 has to be used in a complete battery of tests in order to understand its ability to protect against corrosion. These include laboratory investigations as well as service life evaluations in absorption fridges.
Based on experience, it is unlikely that production in China will generate cost savings. In fact, wages have risen there to the point where it is no longer considered a low cost country. Furthermore, there are the direct investment costs for building up the new production facility as well as the transportation costs to transport the product back to Europe for sale. These are estimated to be around 12 million euros. In addition, Dometic would need to adjust their product mix and thus lose market share and profit. Furthermore, local business communities in Europe may suffer from the loss of service and subcontracting jobs. All of this has to be taken into account when evaluating the feasibility of this solution.camping refrigerator