Anti-icing fluid certification practices
The conference programme of Khimia 2023 presented a special workshop on Anti-icing Fluids and De-icing Agents: Effective Solutions for Road Maintenance and Aviation.
The event was held by EXPOCENTRE AO with the support of Soyuzexpertiza ANO at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Soyuzexpertiza SIC.
The discussion was moderated by Oksana Polyanskaya, Head of the Single Window Centre of Soyuzexpertiza ANO. She drew the attention of the workshop participants to the problem of safety of anti-icing fluids and de-icing agents produced by Russian manufacturers, to the topic of quality control and increasing requirements for the environmental friendliness of such products.
“To maintain road safety and flight safety, the demand for anti-icing fluids and de-icing agents is constantly increasing,” she said. “Large and medium-sized cities to combat icing and reduce road injuries are abandoning traditional sand and salt mixtures and increasing demand for modern de-icing agents, which puts the issue of quality and safety of such materials at the focus of attention”.
Konstantin Pyankov, Advisor of Soyuzexpertiza SIC at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, spoke about the work of the laboratory centre within Soyuzexpertiza, which was specially created to test de-icing chemicals and de-icing fluids.
“The sanction conditions that currently exist,” he shared, “have seriously escalated the issue of application and certification of Russian anti-icing fluids. Time is passing, and existing producers of anti-icing fluids are forced to work in a kind of legal vacuum in terms of international rules.
“There are also tightening environmental conditions and Rospotrebnadzor requirements for de-icing agents. Therefore, having a structure and rules for testing de-icing agents is a very important point, a kind of goodwill formation among both operators and manufacturers of de-icing agents. We all need to be sure that what is applied to the road surface does not cause harm and preserves the road surface.”
Representatives of the Russian aviation industry took part in the further discussion. Victor Gorbachev, Director General at the Airport Association of Civil Aviation, Elena Savranskaya, representative of the management of Siberia Airlines (S7 Airlines), representative of the Russian Airtransport Operators Association, shared their best practices in the use of anti-icing fluids in the current conditions.
Olga Bondarenko, head of the laboratory facilities at Soyuzexpertiza SIC at the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told about the peculiarities of certification of anti-icing fluids and de-icing agents, as well as about not always transparent manufacturing practice and problems with the control of such products circulating on the market.
Artem Volovikov, Director General at ARSKA Technologies engineering company, shared with the attendees modern solutions in the field of utilisation of spent de-icing fluids and existing opportunities for their recycling.
In general, the workshop participants drew attention to the need of further steps on the part of the government to form a system of more transparent and complete regulation of the quality of anti-icing fluids and de-icing agents used in road maintenance and aviation.
Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO