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Thread: ? about hydrocarbon gas
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20-06-2013, 05:34 PM #1
Re: ? about hydrocarbon gas
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!
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10-08-2013, 05:26 PM #2
Re: ? about hydrocarbon gas
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/2012/1...8BB0HE20121212
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.