High voltage takes center stage in this season of Hitachi Energy's Power Pulse podcast. We promise to bring you great content from the brightest minds in the business. We'll discuss challenges, opportunities, and all the hot topics any high voltage enthusiast or anyone interested in sustainability for that matter, is sure to enjoy. In this episode of the podcast, you will meet Rebecka Forward, Hitachi Energy's Product Material Compliance Manager.
Rebecka holds two chemistry degrees, both earned in her home country of Canada. She has a strong passion for chemistry and loves that it can be found anywhere you look. She loves it so much, she spent a few years teaching undergraduate students and helping them understand its intricacies. Rebecka's primary focus is ensuring that high voltage products adhere to global materials regulations, guaranteeing their safety for our valued customers and the environment. Welcome back to Power Pulse.
I'm your host, Sam Dash, and today I'm speaking with Rebecka Forward, Product Material Compliance Manager. Hi, Rebecka. Hi. So glad to be here today. Thank you for having me. You're welcome. So, Rebecka, you are a chemist by training. You studied at Queen's University and University of British Columbia. What did you enjoy most about your training at that stage of your career? I think I've always been a bit of a nerd.
Chemistry was my favorite subject in high school, and so getting to study it and explore it more as I got a bit older was just really interesting for me. It's always been a big passion. I think there's so much to learn. I think there's a lot of intricacies when you look at things at that small of a space, and so always have been a point of interest. Now, I remember reading in your bio that you really enjoy the outdoors. Absolutely.
Do you feel like there was some sort of connection for you between your love of chemistry and your love of the outdoors? Did those feel like they overlapped for you? To be honest, I think I do see them as kind of two different worlds that I love. But I think when you kind of look at the world itself, you can always break it into chemistry, physics and mathematics, you know?
Yeah. I think that's kind of the beauty of like exploration and being outdoors is that you can kind of explain all of the things in the natural world using chemistry, physics and mathematics. Yeah, I love that. Let's get into more of the chemistry. First things first. The ‘F’ in F-gas stands for fluoride or fluorine. Is that right? Yes. It's never what people think it is. It's definitely fluorine. So what exactly is fluorine? It's an element on the periodic table.
It's always at the top right corner. And so that also can tell us a bit about the properties. One of the properties of being at the top right corner, it means it loves electron density – really wants to pull electron density towards it. And that's actually one of the properties that's going to make it such a good gas for high voltage equipment. And is it true that tennis balls used to be filled with SF6? I was actually just as surprised as you when I came across that little tidbit.
It's actually true. They don't do it anymore, obviously, for the environmental reasons. But actually, if you kind of think about a helium balloon, you know, after a few days that helium kind of dissipates, right? And that's because most materials you can kind of look at as a bit like a cheese grater, there's a little bit of holes in between everything. And when you have something like helium gas that's really, really tiny, it can move through those holes in the cheese grater pretty quickly.
Whereas SF6, if you think about it, it’s sulfur with six fluorines, it's quite a large molecule. And so I think the incentive was if they put these larger gas molecules, it'll be harder to go through those holes in the cheese grater and it'll stay at a higher pressure for longer, and your tennis ball will work a little better. I love that analogy of the cheese grater. I feel like that's such a great visual for our listeners. So you said sulfur and that refers to the ‘S’ in SF6.
Yeah. And you've described a bit what fluorine is like as a component. Yeah. What is sulfur like? How would you describe sulfur? In the periodic table, it's actually structured in such an intelligent way. We get information from the rows that the element is in the periodic table and the columns. And so sulfur is just one below oxygen on the periodic table. So have some similar properties but a much – I guess – lower affinity for electron density than in something like oxygen.
And what makes it such a good pair with fluorine? So sulfur is a bit of a larger atom. It's one row down in the periodic table, which means it's a little bit bigger, has a little bit more electron density. Some of those electrons aren't being held on so tightly. So it can share a little bit more of that electron density with fluorine. And fluorine likes that because fluorine’s a little greedy, really wants to hold on to all that electron density. Then it works as a good pair. Got it. Got it.
A good but at times not necessarily the safest pair. Definitely. It really depends on how you're using these compounds. Yeah. Absolutely. So I've heard that also SF6 may be used in eye surgery to help repair damaged retinas. Is that right? Well I'm no ophthalmologist, so please don't quote me on this one, but it's actually a very similar analogy to the cheese grater.
So when you have just undergone surgery, you want to kind of fill the eye with a bit of gas to kind of protect and allow time for that to repair. If you use something like helium, it would dissipate really quickly and not give the tissue the time it needed to repair. Now, SF6 is actually nontoxic for humans, which is also one of the factors of why it was used so readily. So it's nontoxic. It won't absorb into the skin.
It won't hurt you as a person, but it gives the eye the time to heal because it can't get through those cheese grater holes. Yeah, right. Obviously you had your training in university, but have you also gathered some of this knowledge through your experience at Hitachi Energy? Yeah, I mean, you spend a lot of time at university and a little bit more time than anyone else wants to spend working on chemistry.
But then also just with my past experiences, I worked at a contract research company, got a huge amount of diverse experience learning about these different compounds there. And then when I came to Hitachi Energy, it was a nice opportunity to really focus on, like the specifics and dive into a niche. And so I have a lot of really intelligent coworkers in the R&D team that have taught me so much of what I know, and that's how I can kind of talk about it now.
There's a lot of collaboration with my colleagues, but it's been really interesting to learn about. Yeah, I love how it sounds like everyone sort of shares their knowledge, and it's very, a communal environment. Absolutely. It's one of the things I like the most about working here – is really working with some truly intelligent, smart, interesting people. Each expert that we've spoken to so far here at the table, they've explained how bad SF6 is for the planet.
I'm wondering what are the exact documented drawbacks of SF6 that you're aware of? The biggest drawback of SF6 is its high global warming potential, or people refer to it as GWP, and so it's quite harmful for the environment. So why don't we dive into a little bit about what that actually means. Of course we have the sun which shines down light or heat. I’ll kind of use them interchangeably, but shines heat onto the Earth. And now that's going to be readily reflected back.
And so that's maybe on glaciers, on snow, on any other highly reflective surface on the Earth. Then that heat gets reflected and dissipates into space naturally cooling. Right? We're removing some heat. When we have a lot of high global warming potential molecules in the atmosphere, those molecules absorb that heat and can re-irradiate it.
So you almost get this ricochet effect where it's kind of bouncing between these molecules in the atmosphere, back to Earth, back to the molecules back to Earth, so that heat isn't getting dissipated into space. It's staying around the Earth and slowly contributing to increase in temperature. With a sort of fair visual be almost as if you have two mirrors- Exactly. Sort of facing each other. Is that right? Absolutely.
You could picture me in space and you on the ground, and we're just ricocheting this back and forth. And it’s unable to escape. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So there's two major factors that kind of contribute to how high a global warming potential gas can have. And so the first one is how much heat it can absorb. And the other is how much of it is in the atmosphere. Funnily enough, water vapor is actually a really strong greenhouse gas because it can absorb a lot of heat.
But as we've all learned in school, water in oceans and rivers gets vaporized a little bit into the atmosphere. Then it condenses in clouds and it comes down as snow or rain. That cycle is actually relatively very short, so it mitigates the amount of time that this water vapor is in the atmosphere. So it absorbs heat very well, but it doesn't stick around for very long. Right. Now SF6 is not that situation. SF6 is very good at absorbing heat and it stays in the atmosphere for a very long time.
One thing that seems consistent across every grid, across the world is that they all seem to rely on SF6 to varying degrees. What are the alternatives for a circuit breaker that has been using SF6 reliably? It's a really good question and it's also a bit complex. So why don't I break it up into a couple of components. First off, one of our major uses of SF6 is in the circuit breaker.
And so you can think of a circuit breaker very much like a fuse but for an energy grid system rather than for your home. The fundamentals of the circuit breaker is there's two pins, and when connected, electricity can easily flow between them. When you have some type of electrical disturbance, maybe a lightning bolt, and you need to stop the flow of electricity to protect the grid, you can separate these two pins and stop the flow of electricity.
So is that for instance, like, you know, I think I grew up learning that you should unplug things like your computer when there's going to be a lightning storm or something like that, so that there isn't a surge of electricity that burns out your computers, that what we're talking about. Exactly. And if we have the interruption of electricity properly, then you don't have to worry about that electrical surge.
Basically, when we're working with some high voltage applications, when you separate these pins, you can actually have electricity kind of jumping between these two pins – that would be called an electrical arc. And this is where we use these insulating gases to mitigate this occurrence. Right. And so the gases have two primary functions. One is the property of being insulating.
You can kind of think about this like for instance in your home when you're cooking you're going to use a metal frying pan. The metal conducts electricity very well. It conducts heat very well. And you can use it for cooking your food. Yeah. Whereas something like plastic or rubber is very insulating and therefore you can't have electricity moving through it. So you can think of these insulating gases almost as a gaseous rubber.
It's hard for electricity to move through it so it can help prevent an arc. It acts as an obstacle. Is that right? Absolutely. Yeah. It's harder to run through that difficult material. It's really pushing you back, giving you some resistance. And the second function is when the arc has formed. It's very dependent on how hot it is to maintain that arc. So in order to quench it, you want to remove heat as quickly as possible.
You want a molecule that can readily absorb heat and dissipate it, which if that rings any bells, it sounds very similar to what's happening when these molecules are in the atmosphere absorbing a lot of heat. Right. Right. So we're designing them for these certain applications. And so SF6 is a very good insulator and it's also very good at dissipating heat away from the arc. That's a very difficult set of particular properties to try to replace.
And so what we've done actually is use an eco-gas mixture with multiple different gases that each have these individual properties. And we can use them in very specific ratios to kind of create a mixture that can do the whole function. Some of these gases individually couldn't be used in the pure sense because maybe one is good at insulating but it's bad at heat removal. Right. Or maybe one's good at heat removal, but it's bad at insulation.
So you have to come up with your own recipe that uses the best function of each gas. Exactly. Again, those very smart R&D scientists have managed to find a recipe where they can adjust those specifications so that they can get a 99% reduction in the global warming potential compared to SF6, but maintain the properties that are required for a safe and operating electrical grid system. Sort of keeping up the efficacy of SF6. Absolutely. Without the dangers.
Yeah, because it's really non-negotiable in our field. We have to make products that are safe. So we need to maintain the quality. But it's also, you know, it's so important to try to work towards more environmentally friendly alternatives. Rebecka, you mentioned earlier this term eco-gas. Can you tell us what is an eco-gas? The eco-gas we use or we call it EconiQ is a mixture of different gases.
And just to kind of circle back this is to meet those properties of the insulating capacity that we need and the heat dissipation properties to when we mix all these different gases together, we get the same functional properties required that we would for SF6. The difference is – as we were again talking global warming potential – our eco-gas has one fluorinated gas in it. C4 fluoronitrile.
This gas dissipates in the environment in 30 years and it degrades into readily available natural byproducts. So the lifetime is relatively low in comparison to SF6, SF6 stays around for over 3000 years in the environment. So when we do a comparison, you can really see that not all F-gases are the same. There's even nuance between this category F-gas. And when you say the component in EconiQ breaks down into natural compounds, what does that mean?
These PFAS or these fluorinated compounds are manmade chemicals. But when this one manmade chemical is released into the environment, it actually splits apart into other different compounds. And those compounds you find naturally in the environment. If something breaks down into natural compounds, does that ensure a certain level of safety? I think in comparison to these manmade fluoro-chemicals, they are inherently less hazardous for this particular example. Yeah, and correct me if I'm wrong.
Is this EconiQ? This is our EconiQ. Yeah. Yeah, I do wonder if you can talk us through how long have regulators been aware that SF6 gas is not great for the environment? And in what ways are people in the industry or businesses already phasing out SF6? I think, as I mentioned, because of those insulating and temperature removal properties, it's very difficult to replace. But I think the industry is well aware of how harmful SF6 can be for the environment.
And I think we're seeing a lot of pushes in terms of technological development in the entire sector to really try to move towards more environmentally friendly opportunities, and that's exactly the purpose of our EconiQ portfolio. Now, of course, you can't just swap one gas for another. These circuit breakers are designed with such precision, such intricacies that you need to redevelop some of those technologies.
And that's currently what we're really pushing here at Hitachi Energy is to to move forward with our environment as being a big priority. Because you've been talking about how fluorine is being used in these different capacities. It makes me want to ask you about PFAS, is that, am I saying– PFAS PFAS okay. And PFAS and then PFOAS? Yeah. Can you help us understand what those are and what brought those to the forefront of consumer health and safety?
Yeah, I think it's a really hot topic right now to talk about PFAS. First of all, I'll define, so PFAS stands for Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances. Now this is really the time I'd love to have a whiteboard and a marker and just be able to, to kind of share with everybody. But these are carbon-based substances that are highly substituted with fluorines. So, they have a lot of fluorine attached to them. Now, these are manmade chemicals. They're designed to be very robust in harsh environments.
For instance, in the circuit breaker, it can reach 19,000 degrees. We need chemicals that are going to be able to withstand these temperatures in these harsh conditions. PFAS are also designed. They have a tendency to be very inert. They don't react with many other compounds. They make very good coatings, for instance waterproofing for jackets, stain resistant carpets, milk containers. Another common one is in pizza boxes so that the cardboard doesn't get too greasy. They have a PFAS coating.
They're abundantly used in consumer goods, in industry, in medical sector, really all over. And I think that we want a quick and easy answer. We want to say no PFAS or all PFAS. We want to make it a bit more simple. And my heart goes out to the regulators because it's such a challenging topic. Even, for instance, the way we define PFAS is different. The European Union has a very broad definition of PFAS. The U.S. has many definitions of what PFAS are.
For instance, the Toxic Controlled Substance Act in the United States has a very narrow definition of what PFAS is, and that narrow definition encompasses more than 12,000 different chemicals. Right. I think when you look at 12,000 of anything as a chemist, some of those are going to be very harmful, like PFOA, and some of them are going to be not so harmful like PTFE, Teflon; it's a coating for your frying pans. We use it in our circuit breakers.
And I think it's hard to sometimes distinguish this nuance, even as a chemist, even as an expert in the field. And I think it really depends on how we're using these substances and how we're disposing of these substances. Right. As a consumer in the world, I'm actually quite concerned with the number of PFAS that we have in our food products, in our clothing. Those types of consumer good products have high contact with human beings.
They also have very high likeliness of being disposed in landfills, where those PFAS can then enter our water systems, which I think is concerning. However, on the flip side, the ways that we use them, I know in our circuit breaker technologies, I think it would be concerning if we didn't use those. Removing some PFAS from this really installed infrastructure has a lot of negative safety implications, which really, I think, add to the nuance and complexity of this issue.
And is there the same sort of initiative to try and replace more hazardous PFAS in a way that is similar to how people are trying to replace the use of SF6? Yeah, I think that PFAS is a little bit more complicated because it's not a set of certain applications. A lot of SF6 is used in our electrical equipment as an insulating gas. It's similar circumstances.
PFAS is really used, like I said, in the automotive industry, in the medical industry, in the energy sector, in clothing and all these types of products, it's very diverse. So I think that we really need to work on strategies that focus differently for maybe industry sectors versus for consumer goods.
And like you said, there's also been attention towards how these chemicals are disposed of or the safety precautions around factories, etc.. How much of your work is interfacing with how chemicals are safely disposed of? I know that in the States and probably in other countries, there have been issues around PFAS leaking into drinking water and causing all sorts of health issues for people. Absolutely.
I think especially when we have spills from chemical manufacturers, that's one of the most concerning PFAS contaminations possible, especially when it's in consumer drinking water. These compounds, again, it depends on the type of PFAS. But they also can be very harmful for individuals, and they have a high likeliness for contaminating waterways because, like I said, we designed these chemicals to be resistant, inert, to not break down.
And so when they get into our waterways, they're resistant, inert, and they don't break down. So they are persistent chemicals. And so I think that the way we recycle and dispose of these chemicals is one of the most important factors. And just to kind of circle back, that's again a major component why we need to mitigate the amount in consumer goods, because it's hard to control how those are disposed of.
Whereas for instance, in the medical sector and in the energy sector here at Hitachi Energy, we have strict procedures for how equipment is handled, that end of product life. We also have high product life spans. A lot of our products are meant to last 60 years, and they're only operated by trained professionals, so we can properly control and dispose of any compounds that are used. Whereas in some other sectors it's very hard to control how they will be disposed of. Yeah.
Additionally you mentioned PFOA. Yeah. So this compound has something in chemistry called a carboxylic acid group. And so this group is going to be slightly water loving. A lot of these PFAS are hydrophobic which means they don't like water. For instance PTFE – a Teflon pan you know is, if you put a water drop on it, you can see a bubble.
It's very resistant to water, whereas some of these other carboxylic acid based PFAS groups are going to have a slightly higher affinity for water than these Teflon compounds. And so they can be very challenging to remove from the water and very expensive. And I think that can pose a lot of harm. So we need to take into account the physical state and chemical structure of these compounds as part of our strategies for how to safely handle these materials.
Considering what we've talked about with the dangers of PFAS and PFOAS and SF6, for that matter, how has all of that knowledge of how those gases operate and the dangers that they pose informed how you go about creating this new gas? So there is one component of our EconiQ gas that is considered a PFAS. And really that's because with these incredibly harsh conditions that we need to meet in this, these circuit breaker technologies, it's currently unavoidable to us.
But what we've done is we've been able to orchestrate the designs that we’re actually, instead of using 100% of a PFAS or other F-gas, we're now only using 3 to 5%. So we've really tried to reduce as much as possible the amount of these compounds that we are using.
Yeah. We are really proud of our EconiQ technology because by utilizing that 3 to 5% of a PFAS gas, we can actually reduce the global warming potential associated with this technology by 99% compared to the only other available transmission high voltage breaker on the market, which is utilizing SF6 technology. In addition, we've done third party validated lifecycle assessments, which show we have the lowest carbon footprint on the market.
Yeah, I get the sense that you are an ambitious and positive force here at Hitachi Energy. Well, thank you very much. My background is making solar panels. Clean technology is kind of at the forefront of my motivations. Yeah. Rebecka, if there was one thing you would like our listeners to take away from our discussion today, what would that be? Letting me talk, the thing I love most. I think I would have to pull from a book I love by Adam Grant called Think Again.
Now, he encourages us to think like scientists. He says we need to gather information. We need to be curious, and we need to rethink some of our held beliefs. As humans, we’re bad at trying to contradict our own beliefs. So sometimes seeking information that goes against maybe something we already think can be really valuable for our learning process. When we think like scientists a little bit more, we can kind of start to break down some of that nuance.
I think in today's society, with Instagram and TikTok, we are always wanting those bold, punchy statements. We want something to be all good or something to be all bad. But in science and in chemistry, not all chemicals are bad. Not all chemicals are good. And so I think it's really interesting to kind of dive in, learn a little bit more. And I really want to iterate that you don't have to be a scientist to think like a scientist. I love that.
Empowers us all to be a scientist and gather information from various sources and inspect where the data is coming from or who's paying for it, etc.. Absolutely. And I think when we think about Instagram and TikTok, the goal for those individuals isn't to give you accurate, representative information. It's to keep you on the app and to keep you engaged. So sometimes that's not the best resources for our learning.
And to also understand really complex topics like PFAS that have a lot of nuance and have a lot of depth. And I think one thing we do need to be really conscientious of is to make sure when we remove a harmful chemical and replace it, that we're not using a bad alternative, something's just as harmful, and we're replacing something bad with something bad, then we're not any net further ahead. Yeah.
So I think also really trying to be cognizant and and really thinking through how are we going to replace these compounds and how do we do it safely and effectively. Beautifully said. Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Rebecka. It's been an absolute pleasure. Well thank you so much for having me. I think I enjoyed this as much as I hope the audience will. You’re very welcome.
You've given us great clarity on SF6 and how to navigate the other chemical alternatives we're encountering today and in the world, and in the pursuit of efficiency as well as sustainability. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Power Pulse. Until next time. And that's it for today. We'll be back soon with some more great content. But before you go, remember to give us a follow so you don't miss an episode. Thanks for tuning in. See you soon! This episode was brought to you by Hitachi Energy.
Created and introduced by Bárbara Freitas-Daniels. Content and script writing by Cassandra Inay. Guest speaker, Rebecka Forward. Hosted by Sam Dash. Produced and edited by Creative Chimps.