R-290

[Bruce Wrenn]

You probably haven't heard much about R-290 refrigerent, but most likely will in the future. It many redeeming qualities. Doesn't damage ozone, so recovery isn't necessary, great heat transfer capacity, low operating pressures, resulting in lower power consumption, cheap and plentiful. So what's not to like about R290. It's flamable, so it is now limited to small charges. I think 150 grams or less, which means it's used in stand alone coolers, window type AC units, refrigerators, dehumidfiers, etc. Most of Europe has embraced the use of R-290. FYI, R-290 is propane. Yep, the same stuff you use to grill, only more refined. Watch for it in your future

[Bill Dufour]

I thought they tried a mix of propane and butane until Henry Ford threw a monkey wrench in the radiator(literally). They had to invent non flammable freon to make him happy. I believe propane boils at minus 40 degrees, same in F or C.
Bill D

[Jim Koepke]

There are a lot of gasses under the banner of freon.

Freon r717 is ammonia. Ammonia is one of the smells my nose can not handle.

jtk

[Jim Koepke]

R-290 is propane. Yep, the same stuff you use to grill, only more refined.

Does it come in a mesquite or oak blend to give it a wood grilled flavor?

jtk

[Rich Engelhardt]

Does it come in a mesquite or oak blend to give it a wood grilled flavor?Depends on what tree you run into...

[Bill Dufour]

I think blind people's canes are filled with propane so if they hit something had the flames will attract the sighted to come and help. Similar to attaching a propane filled radiator to the front of the car.
A simple means of letting the driver know when they hit something. The resulting fires will also increase new car sales for a win win.
Bill D

[Bill Dufour]

Several years ago I heard bmw or mercedes was trying using pure CO2 at very high pressures for ac.
Bill D

[Kev Williams]

I'm supposing that diesel equipped vehicles will never see propane-refrigerated AC units...

[Bruce Wrenn]

I'm supposing that diesel equipped vehicles will never see propane-refrigerated AC units...Why do you think this?

[Tom M King]

They use Butane in other countries, as well as propane. It scares people to death, because it's explosive. It always make me wonder why these same people don't think a thing about hauling around 15, or more, gallons of gasoline. A vehicles refrigerant system holds about 1 pound, or Way less than a gallon.

I'm using R12a in a tractor, that used to use R12. I think it's just Butane. Doesn't scare me a bit, or at least, not any more than the 45 gallons of diesel fuel that tractor holds.

[Bill Dufour]

R12a is a mix of butane and propane. Problem is one gas leaks out more then the other since it is a smaller molecule. This changes the properties of heat transfer and pressures and makes the system not work as well. The mix needs to stay in a near perfect ratio for it too work well.
Bill D

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedia_de_La_Cresta

[Tom M King]

Been running fine in that tractor for about four years now, and I've never needed to add any. It might not run quite as cold as a new system, but I can operate that tractor for a couple of hours, which is as long as I ever need to, and be comfortable, with no sweating, without having to run the AC on the highest setting. I figured it was worth a try, and it works plenty good enough not to use R12 for all the bad reasons. Theory is great, but I figured it was cheap enough to try, and not so much worry about damaging the atmosphere.

I had a feeling, a couple of months ago, that refrigerant prices were going to go up, so I bought a 25 pound tank of R410A, for use in mini-split systems. It was $145 then, and over 300 now. I keep one gauge set for each type of refrigerant, and only use a couple of types, so only a couple of recovery tanks too. I don't work on anyone else's stuff.

[Kev Williams]

Why do you think this?

many years ago a customer who rented a car from me explained why he needed the rental- His Mercedes diesel grenaded itself while driving it into an excavation dig of some sort; something in the dig was leaking propane, he drove thru the 'vapor field', the diesel ingested the propane vapor and began running uncontrollably- the only way to shut it down was put it neutral and see what happened... I guess it wasn't pretty.
**as I understand them,** diesels are always sucking in air, they throttle up & down strictly by fuel injection, ignition is a function of compression. If you add an uncontrolled fuel source, like propane, to the incoming air source, there's no way to regulate the engine speed- There may be safeguards in place these days to prevent such problems I'm not aware of, I'm not all that bright on diesel technology ;)

So, to me anyway, just seems like a bad idea to use a flammable refrigerant-that could leak- in the vicinity of a diesel's air intake...