Behr GmbH & Co. KG   Aluminum HVAC components such as heat
exchangers are always damp, and must be surface treated for
corrosion protection, to facilitate water run-off, and to
prevent growth and propagation of molds and noxious odors. The
industry's record at achieving these essential aims has been
checkered at best. What made it worse, the usual process for
surface treating aluminum HVAC parts has been "chemical attack,"
using a yellow (hexavalent) chromium bath, which is itself
environmentally hostile and very toxic.  Behr, about to build
new plants to expand their automotive HVAC business into two new
countries, began to experiment with alternative surface
treatment approaches, in search of a process that would give
better quality and be environmentally satisfactory. In fact,
they, like the rest of the industry, were facing strict new EU
regulations governing hexavalent chromium.  Their innovation is
a process that operates in a totally different way, heating the
work pieces to relatively high temperature