(now known as Autofrost or R-406A)
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GHG invented a substitute for CFC-12 (akaDupont FREON-12(R)) refrigerant in his kitchen in August 1990. Itis known as GHG REFRIGERANT-12 SUBSTITUTE and it isnow manufactured at People's Welding Supply (next to Nick's) onthe Levee in W. Lafayette. It has been used in over 2,000 carsand over 10,000 pieces of other refrigeration equipment by 1994.ASHRAE has designated it as R-406A refrigerant. CFC-12(FREON-12(R)) has been linked to the destruction of the Ozonelayer. On August 26, 1994 the US EPA "approved" (listedon the SNAP list) GHG for most retrofit uses except for cars. Itappeared in the August 26 FEDERAL REGISTER.(postscript), or PDF format.(AdobeAcrobat). On October 16, 1996, the EPA approved R-406A for use incars as well.
GHG holds two US
On 4/14/95, GHG was interviewed on the Sam Steiger radio &TV talk show originating in Phoenix, AZ, on the subject ofrefrigerants and R-406A. Recently the Arizona state legislaturehad passed a bill authorizing production of CFC-12 refrigerant inviolation of federal law. As of 4/14/95, the so called"Freon Bill" was on the governor's desk for signature.On 4/17/95, Governor Fife Symington, signed the bill into statelaw!
The entire interview lasted around 25 minutes and is brokendown into 16 smaller sound clips. Sounds are mono, sampled at8000 hz, in ".au" (mulaw) Sun format.
The
icon will give you the original ".au"file, which is rather large and slow to download. Clicking on the
icon willgive you a Real-Audio(tm) encoded version of the file, which is1/8 to 1/10 the size of the original .au file and almost as goodin quality. You need to have the Real-Audio player installed tolisten to .ra files. See http://www.realaudio.comto get a player.
This second interview was announcing R-406A to be legal forautomotive on 9/18/95. Also performance discussion, anddiscussion of GHG "High Performance" refrigerant.
On 7/13/95, a rule change took effect which ended up stoppingthe 9/18/95 "legal-to-sell" [for cars] date. However,the EPA SNAP approval process [for automotive] is still pending.[R-406A was finally approved for Automotive use on 10/16/1996]
The paper A DROP-IN CFC-12REPLACEMENT FOR AUTOMOTIVE AIRCONDITIONING was presentedat the 1992 International Refrigeration Conference held at PurdueUniversity, July 1992. It describes the initial invention of GHGRefrigerant-12 Substitute(R) and early automotive uses.
CFC-12/OIL fire
From a slide shown during the conference presentation. A mixtureof CFC-12 and 15% by volume of Suniso 5GS compressor mineral oil,typical of what is found inside an automotive Airconditioningsystem, was vented (May 1991, before the EPA ban on venting) andignited. GHG is on the left, and Bob Miller is on the right. Asone can see, R-12 and oil burn just fine.
SOME SAFETY STUDIES OF A TERNARYREFRIGERANT (postscript) was presented at the 1994International Refrigeration Conference held at Purdue University,held July 19-22. Same file in PDFformat (Adobe Acrobat)
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