? about hydrocarbon gas

[iceberg1988]

i am thinking about starting to learning a bit about hydrocarbon gases to save money. can any one tell me what the difference between r290a and lpg is . can any one tell me why u cant just use pure lpg in a fridge all u would need is a pt chart for it. does lpg have more moister in it
because from what i can work out it seems to work fine we tried it in a domestic fridge and ran fine for 4 years

[Rob White]

.

None.

LPG is Liquid Petroleum Gas, Propane to you and me.
R290 is high quality 99.5% pure propane.............

Just don't use LPG in a fridge circuit because it is wet and
dirty. Before it can be called R290 it must be purified and
dried, also unpurified LPG has Sulphur in it and Sulphur
reacts with copper.

Regards

Rob

.

[RANGER1]

You also need a license & to know exactlywhat your doing.
If you don't, go directly to jail.
What happens if you get a leak?
What happens if someone comes after you & they don't know whats in it.
Its highlt flammable.
You have to take it very seriously, as back yard operators trying to save money are going to hurt people.
A domestic fridge is not worth woorying about due to very small charge.

DON'T DO IT UNTIL YOR FULLY TRAINED AND LICENCED

We all know it works so don't experiment!

Who are you saving money, you or client?

[Rob White]

You also need a license & to know exactlywhat your doing.
If you don't, go directly to jail.
What happens if you get a leak?
What happens if someone comes after you & they don't know whats in it.
Its highlt flammable.
You have to take it very seriously, as back yard operators trying to save money are going to hurt people.
A domestic fridge is not worth woorying about due to very small charge.

DON'T DO IT UNTIL YOR FULLY TRAINED AND LICENCED

We all know it works so don't experiment!

Who are you saving money, you or client?

That's a good point, but in the UK if the guy holds a safe handling of refrigerants qualification
(recent one is the F-gas C&G or CITB) he is deemed qualified to work with HC refrigerants.

He might not be allowed to buy refrigerant grade HC's because the suppliers like people
to have a HC qualification also but qualified fridge guys in the UK are qualified to work
with the refrigerant.

Regards

Rob

.

[RANGER1]

That's a good point, but in the UK if the guy holds a safe handling of refrigerants qualification
(recent one is the F-gas C&G or CITB) he is deemed qualified to work with HC refrigerants.

He might not be allowed to buy refrigerant grade HC's because the suppliers like people
to have a HC qualification also but qualified fridge guys in the UK are qualified to work
with the refrigerant.

Regards

Rob

.

Rob,
Too my understading in Australia you need a different or extra qualification.
Plumbers here have to be licenced gas fitters to run gas lines, hhok up stoves, hot water systems etc.
I also think to convert something it requires special expertise as well.
If it was not purpose built electicals have to be modified as well as ventilation requirements if system is a little larger.
Its only taking off slowly here as regulations & training have to catch up.
Obviously as you say refrigerant grade refrigerant is required which is relatively cheap.
LPG is not suitable for general use in refrigeration.

I think it is a good refrigerant, but needs to be handled correctly.


A number of people have been injured or killed just storing mapp gas in their cars, let alone bottles of hydrocarbons.

[Rob White]

.

I'm not sure what it is like in the rest of Europe but in the UK
if you work with flammable gas for heating purposes then you
must be Gas Safe qualified (taken every 5 years), so plumbers,
heating engineers and gas fitters all need that "Gas Safe" qual.

In refrigeration HC gases are treated just like other refrigerants
and if you are trained and qualified to work with one then you are
trained and qualified to work with the other (the exception is Ammonia).

The training covers the issues regarding HC's flammability but does not
go into too much detail.

The suppliers do require us to hold a HC qualification before they will sell
the stuff to us but that is not strictly enforced everywhere.

As far as I know (if anyone knows different let me know) as far as I know
we have not had any real incidents where an engineer was hurt or hurt
somebody while working with HC's.

It might be because the system to date are so small that not enough of
the stuff is present to cause harm, or we are just fantastic :cool: or maybe
we have just been lucky to date :eek:

Regards

Rob

.

[MikeHolm]

Everything I have read show sulfur levels in LPG to be quite low but i cannot find any reference to a minimum allowable level for refrigerant grade stuff. Most people I know using R290 filter it through 2 liquid line filters and straight into the system. No idea about the long term effects on the system from this though....

[Rob White]

Everything I have read show sulfur levels in LPG to be quite low but i cannot find any reference to a minimum allowable level for refrigerant grade stuff. Most people I know using R290 filter it through 2 liquid line filters and straight into the system. No idea about the long term effects on the system from this though....


I found this.

http://www.lindeus.com/internet.lg.lg.usa/en/images/Linde%20R290%20Refrigerant%20Grade%20Propane138_11493.pdf

Purity

The quality of commercially available propane (LPG) is very often
not suitable for refrigeration. The composition varies substantially,
generally having between 60 and 95% propane. It can have high
levels of moisture and unsaturated hydrocarbons.
Impurities such as other hydrocarbons can impact the vapour
pressure of the product, lowering overall system efficiency. Sulphur
can cause corrosion, and unsaturated hydrocarbons can react with
system components. Moisture leads to hydrolysis, corrosion and
compressor failure.

R290 is at least 97.5% pure with minimal levels of critical impurities including moisture
(typically† <10ppm), unsaturated hydrocarbons (typically <0.5%) and
sulphur. This makes it ideal for use in all types of refrigeration and air
conditioning systems.



Regards

Rob

.

[ozfrige]

Rather interesting all this about LPG having loads of moisture & sulphur. I have a vehicle that i replaced the R12 with LPG from my barbacue bottle 2 years ago & fitted a new reciever drier. Its still going & works realy well. The vehicle also runs on LPG & at last inspection & test the tank is not coroded inside & passed & so did the copper piping. One wonders if its a scare tactic to buy over priced gas just because its suposedly filtered & dried?

[paddy]

L P G is a one -off burning process, the worst that can happen ( if you aren't completely stupid, is your steaks finish up raw or turned into charcoal ). With a REFRIGERANT, it a continual reuse system, The amount used in car A/C is only 400 -600 gms, so the chance of contaminants is quite low, However if you use large industrial quantities of any of the HC refrigerants, chance of contamination increases significantly. The freezing point of water (a common contaminent ) is 0c Therefore what happens at zero, -5, -20, etc, The TEV ices up and you get no flow therefore no cooling effect, and a ruined product. Thouands of dollars/pounds lost, What's your insurance cover like ? Alternatively look at Tamehere NZ 5th April 2008 500Kgs of Hychill -50 Exploded and killed a Senior Fire Officer and serious injury to seven others. So the moral of the story is :- Short time monetary gain can have SERIOUS consequences for more than just the engineer working on the plant, How do you think the engineer at Tamehere slept for the weeks following the fire and death of a fireman ?

[BradC]

\How do you think the engineer at Tamehere slept for the weeks following the fire and death of a fireman ?

If you'd read the report cover to cover then you'd guess he slept as well as he always did. It was not the use of HC as a refrigerant that caused that incident, it was repeated wilful negligence and blatant disregard for life and safety.

Some basic safety systems, warning signs and liaison with local authorities would have prevented that disaster in its entirety, with the only loss being a couple of hundred kilos of propane.

[Goober]

[QUOTE=Rob White;269546].

None.

LPG is Liquid Petroleum Gas, Propane to you and me.
R290 is high quality 99.5% pure propane.............

Just don't use LPG in a fridge circuit because it is wet and
dirty. Before it can be called R290 it must be purified and
dried, also unpurified LPG has Sulphur in it and Sulphur
reacts with copper.

Regards

Rob

The cynic in me would say this is misinformation spread by the coporates to bump up the price of R290 etc. As there is enough anecdotal evidence on this site and elswhere that standard LPG works just fine. But I still would prefer to use the superduper dried and purified stuff...I liken this to fuel additives and/or marketing guff from petro chemical companies that says the petrol cleans your engine as you go etc etc.

We are more suseptable to suggestive marketing/direct marketing whatever marketing than we all reliase. And believe it or not I'm not a conspiracy theoriset...

[BradC]

The cynic in me would say this is misinformation spread by the coporates to bump up the price of R290 etc. As there is enough anecdotal evidence on this site and elswhere that standard LPG works just fine.

It actually depends where you live. In most of the US, and in the Eastern States of Australia, LPG (the stuff you get in 9KG BBQ bottles) can contain a variable mix of Propane and Butane (not ISO-Butane), plus (in the US anyway) a healthy dose of Methanol. This can be hard to separate out to get just the Propane. On the other hand, in Western Australia BBQ LPG is 100% Propane.

I decanted about 5KG into a recovery cylinder and hooked it up to small refrigeration unit as a liquid receiver, with a honking great drier and sporlan sight glass in the liquid line and let it run for a couple of days. I did before and after weighs to determine how much gunk the drier took out of the Propane. The answer (for my specific LPG source anyway) was not a lot. It took out *all* the Ethyl Mercaptan. According to the sight glass, the Propane was pretty dry to begin with. It matches the R290 PT chart perfectly.

The guys over at the ecorenovator forum (in the Geothermal section) have done quite a lot of work on a foolproof way to distil the US LPG to get just the Propane out of it. It's a lot of work, but it can be done.

I priced the Australian HC refrigerants recently, and they wanted over $50 a kilo. My dried and filtered Propane came in at about $8.60 a Kilo (the drier cost twice what the Propane did). Now this is for my own experimentation and use. I'd never dream of putting it into someone elses system.

60% Propane & 40% Iso-Butane (now readily available in camping stores) comes very close to matching R-12 pt characteristics and works a treat in a Car A/C.

[The MG Pony]

I've don the same thing, I built a small system to run the BBQ grade R-290 through it for a couple days, then recover to a dry clean cylinder, and the PT's match dead on, I used it in allot of old crap air cons after fully explaining and disclosing the ifs to the customer, and to this day they say they never have worked as good as they do now from when they got it!

Only real benefit is convenience of not having to do filtering your self, but they ask one hell of a mark up for that convenience!

All so as stated the little 2 pound (1pound?) green bottles is near pure and dry as one could hope for!

Either way the R-290 whether commercially purified or BBQ grade R-290 home purified beats any man made gas hands down! I'll take the HC fridge in a fire any day of the week over an HFC fridge!

[FreezerGeezer]

Rob,
Too my understading in Australia you need a different or extra qualification.
Plumbers here have to be licenced gas fitters to run gas lines, hhok up stoves, hot water systems etc.
I also think to convert something it requires special expertise as well.
If it was not purpose built electicals have to be modified as well as ventilation requirements if system is a little larger.
Its only taking off slowly here as regulations & training have to catch up.
Obviously as you say refrigerant grade refrigerant is required which is relatively cheap.
LPG is not suitable for general use in refrigeration.

I think it is a good refrigerant, but needs to be handled correctly.


A number of people have been injured or killed just storing mapp gas in their cars, let alone bottles of hydrocarbons.

I'm not so sure about that. I'm told that Arctick take no interest in natural refrigerants including HC's at all.
I all's know a number of people who've bought propane from Repco or Supercheap Auto (Repco = Halfords) to charge their car A/C with. It's led to a few mildly heated forum discussions.

[FreezerGeezer]

.

I'm not sure what it is like in the rest of Europe but in the UK
if you work with flammable gas for heating purposes then you
must be Gas Safe qualified (taken every 5 years), so plumbers,
heating engineers and gas fitters all need that "Gas Safe" qual.

In refrigeration HC gases are treated just like other refrigerants
and if you are trained and qualified to work with one then you are
trained and qualified to work with the other (the exception is Ammonia).

The training covers the issues regarding HC's flammability but does not
go into too much detail.

The suppliers do require us to hold a HC qualification before they will sell
the stuff to us but that is not strictly enforced everywhere.

As far as I know (if anyone knows different let me know) as far as I know
we have not had any real incidents where an engineer was hurt or hurt
somebody while working with HC's.

It might be because the system to date are so small that not enough of
the stuff is present to cause harm, or we are just fantastic :cool: or maybe
we have just been lucky to date :eek:

Regards

Rob

.

Actually, Tesco's (in about 1998/99) Enfield store used HC refrigerants. I can't recall but I think it was a new store, not a refit / extension. At the time you were supposed to be limited to a max. of 4kg in any one system. We were all speculating about how they'd got around that, and I recall the tech. whose site it was saying he was planning to refuse to have anything to do with it.

[Doug30293]

First post here.

I've been reading up on our (US) EPA rules regarding HC refrigerants. They are now legal for some equipment if it was specifically manufactured for HC. They are not legal substitutes for R12 or R22. They are also not legal for automotive use.

Several companies are selling "drop-in" replacements on ebay. The EPA just issued a press release warning us to stay clear of them. The fact that these HC's offered on ebay are in some cases more expensive than legal refrigerants tells me the sellers are targeting illegal users anyway.

Doug

[jamieson91]

Rather interesting all this about LPG having loads of moisture & sulphur. I have a vehicle that i replaced the R12 with LPG from my barbacue bottle 2 years ago & fitted a new reciever drier. Its still going & works realy well. The vehicle also runs on LPG & at last inspection & test the tank is not coroded inside & passed & so did the copper piping. One wonders if its a scare tactic to buy over priced gas just because its suposedly filtered & dried?
The copper piping will appear fine as it is degrading from the inside out you can not see it

[The MG Pony]

The copper piping will appear fine as it is degrading from the inside out you can not see it


Oh rly!!!!

Spoken from true peranoia! I was born raised and work with propane and to this day I live with it as my primary heating and cooling fuel, and in that 30 years not once have I seen copper damaged by propane or the junk usualy in it, from industrial multicylinder compressors to the bbq tank with the 30 foot direct burried copper line.

So do please try again! bad information just annoies me!

Any degraded copper I see is from hard water/to much flux used and left on the pipe but never once have I seen it degraded by the use of propane and or the contaminants found in it.

[NiHaoMike]

Either way the R-290 whether commercially purified or BBQ grade R-290 home purified beats any man made gas hands down! I'll take the HC fridge in a fire any day of the week over an HFC fridge!
It's pretty funny how many claim that hydrocarbon refrigerants are "unsafe" when fluorocarbons turn to phosgene, hydrogen fluoride, or some other toxic gas in a fire.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/12/12/uk-europe-cars-refrigerant-idUKBRE8BB0HE20121212

In a residential refrigerator or packaged A/C, the amount needed is very small and should pose little safety concern. In automotive A/C, the amount needed is tiny compared to all the gasoline and other flammable fluids already used. (It might actually make a good argument in an electric car, but only if the batteries are LiFePO4 or other non flammable chemistry.) Large commercial and industrial systems are a different story, but even there the risks can be mitigated.

Ultimately, I would like to see water used as an A/C refrigerant. Nonflammable and nontoxic. My friend Brittany Benzaia actually built a prototype "hybrid" A/C that uses it open loop in an evaporative condenser as well as in a sealed system with a switched reluctance centrifugal compressor. She claims that it's equivalent to a 40 SEER unit, but I'm pretty sure that's only attainable in very dry, very hot climates like Arizona.

BTW, I'm sure those pushing the traditional refrigerants would probably call that "dihydrogen monoxide" and claim that many people have died from breathing that stuff, but I'm sure Brittany would be more than happy to debunk that by sniffing a bottle of it, then pouring it all over herself, then telling the "critic" to try that with their refrigerant.

[The MG Pony]

Ah indeed I did that once when asked what I was hualing by a road block, Dihydrogen Monoxide, the look on the guy as he was ready to phone in the DOT guys was funny, thank fully one of the crew got the joke in time! :O

Water can be used just like R11 with a centrifugal compressor in a closed loop cycle, it even has a refrigerent number!

as for the flamibility of R-290 I love how they all seem to forget that POE oil burns great as with all the other oils!

[Rob White]

Ah indeed I did that once when asked what I was hualing by a road block, Dihydrogen Monoxide, the look on the guy as he was ready to phone in the DOT guys was funny, thank fully one of the crew got the joke in time! :O

Water can be used just like R11 with a centrifugal compressor in a closed loop cycle, it even has a refrigerent number!

as for the flamibility of R-290 I love how they all seem to forget that POE oil burns great as with all the other oils!

R718.

Regards

Rob

.

[The MG Pony]

R718.

Regards

Rob

.

Cheeresa mate! I remember years ago seeing a thing on TV where they used water in a closed loop cooling system for a deep mine shaft.

[kiamaian]

I have used hydro-carbon gases in my car air conditioning, split system room air conditioner and a reverse cycle heat pump for heating domestic water. I obtained the gas from Hychill Australia because it was alleged to be prepared for refrigeration applications.

However, I recently bought a disposable can of gas from one of their retailers only to find out that the fitting to tap into the container was not the standard 1/2 inch Acme fitting. I was advised by Hychill to go back to the store and buy one of their special fittings at a cost of $75.

I regard the cost of such a small and simple fitting to be exhorbitant so I am returning the cylinder for a credit and I will go down the barbecue gas route. I have a large commercial drier and I will fill it with propane and leave it there for a few days before I put the gas into my car.

I believe the use of hydrocarbons in applications where the leakage of gas is common place such as automotive air conditioning should become the norm to protect the earth's atmosphere.

[NiHaoMike]

You can put the whole container in a freezer overnight to freeze any moisture in it, then take it outside and open the valve for a few seconds to purge out any non condensables. Afterwards, follow up with running it through a few driers, though you'll need to use a recovery machine (or a condensing unit turned into a recovery machine) to decant it into another container.

[Oldmanfrigy]

Hello Tony Here [ oldmanfrigy ]

I have used Hychill Hydrocarbon in split systems and car A/Cs and was a trainer assessor for OZ-Chill. My gas is in a 9KG bottle has a normal male tap like the 134a Bottle not like the LPG bottle for my BQ. My gas came from Sprint Auto Parts.

Below is an email address from another OZ-Chill trainer and he may be able to help you.
[Kevin ] cleansafeenergysolutions@gmail.com

I would love to know how you get on.

Tony B

[markonah]

nice share about hidrocarbon gas.
http://watchfree.me/32/w.png