| Motoring Discussion > New aircon refrigerant regs... | Green Issues |
| Thread Author: PR | Replies: 9 |
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New Sat 15 Dec 12 23:37
New aircon refrigerant regs... - PR
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New aircon regulations from 2017 need some more thought, if this report is anything to go by! Rather dangerous! FRANKFURT (Reuters) - When engineers at Mercedes-Benz tasked with field-testing a new refrigerant watched it ignite in a ball of fire before their eyes, it took a while for the significance of their discovery to sink in. The discovery suggested the new product posed a risk to car passengers. It has set off a battle between Daimler and U.S. conglomerate Honeywell, replete with mudslinging, conspiracy theories and spin-doctoring. At stake is not just a lucrative business for Honeywell and its partner Dupont, who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, market and produce the coolant known as HFO-1234yf. Their refrigerant also happens to be the only product of its kind that meets new EU climate guidelines. Because of concerns about greenhouse gases, EU legislators in Brussels have ordered the phasing out of the long-time industry standard, R134a, from January. By 2017, every single air-conditioned car that rolls off assembly lines for sale in Europe - roughly 14 million vehicles a year - could be filled with about $70 worth of HFO-1234yf. Engineers at the German carmaker's Sindelfingen test track tested HFO-1234yf in early August. Simulating a leak in the air-conditioning line of a Mercedes B class, they had released a fine mixture of refrigerant and A/C compressor oil, which sprayed across the car's turbo-charged 1.6-liter engine. The substance caught fire as soon as it hit the hot surface, releasing a toxic, corrosive gas as it burned. The car's windshield turned milky white as lethal hydrogen fluoride began eating its way into the glass. "We were frozen in shock, I am not going to deny it. We needed a day to comprehend what we had just seen," said Stefan Geyer, a senior Daimler engineer who ran the tests. Air-conditioning refrigerants are not the stuff of controversy. Traditionally, they have been made of relatively innocuous chemicals that change from liquid to vapor and back again, transferring heat and cooling the surrounding air in the process. The Daimler test has sent the industry, and Brussels, scrambling to figure out whether years of tests that showed the new product to be perfectly safe could have been flawed. If it does pose a danger, they must reconsider plans to introduce the refrigerant across Europe's entire fleet - and act fast. "The industry obviously takes very seriously the new findings, which show the refrigerant can be flammable under certain extreme conditions," said Cara McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for Europe's auto industry association ACEA. After confirming their August results in subsequent tests, Daimler notified the authorities in late September that it wanted to recall all 1,300 cars worldwide that already use the new refrigerant. A month later, with only a few weeks to go until the phase-in of HFO-1234yf begins, 13 major carmakers quietly began a new fourth round of safety tests to assess the accuracy of the Daimler results, which showed combustion occurring in more than two-thirds of the cases after a simulated head-on collision. Damage control Meanwhile, Honeywell and Dupont are in full-blown damage control mode. They stand to lose a fortune in wasted development costs and forfeited future revenue. Honeywell alone has secured over 100 patents for the product worldwide. The companies say the simulations were not conducted under real-life conditions and note that cars that were actually crashed to test the material - rather than subject to simulated accidents - did not raise any red flags. They accuse Daimler of grossly exaggerating the danger and even of deliberately staging the test to provoke a scare out of ulterior motives that have nothing to do with passenger safety - a claim the Stuttgart-based carmaker vehemently denies. Geyer's findings were so diametrically at odds with previously documented research that even German engineers at an automotive icon like Mercedes started to doubt themselves. "It was scarcely believable. The most complicated lab tests conducted using the most sensitive measuring instruments around found nothing and all we do is drive a car around a couple of times, open a tiny hole in the refrigerant line and the next thing you know the car is on fire," said Geyer. Had he seen a February 2008 report by a small Austrian firm, Obrist Engineering, he might have known that combustion could occur at engine operating temperatures. Obrist identified a risk of secondary fire and urged further investigation to assess the implications for passengers, citing the relatively low concentrations of toxic emissions needed to kill a human being. Andreas Kornath, a chemistry professor at the University of Munich who works with fire fighters, has been warning carmakers about HFO-1234yf and the risks posed by even low amounts of hydrogen fluoride (HF) released during its combustion. "Whereas carbon monoxide does no permanent tissue damage and during a fire rises straight into the atmosphere, HF binds with ambient moisture to form very fine droplets of hydrofluoric acid that can remain suspended in the air," he said. Readily absorbed by the skin, hydrogen fluoride begins attacking the body once it enters the bloodstream by spreading death on a cellular level, a process known as necrosis. High enough doses are known to cause the lungs to fill up with fluid, causing a drowning sensation, and to trigger cardiac arrest. According to the U.S. Labor Department's Occupation Safety and Health Administration, workers should not be exposed over an eight-hour period to more than three milligrams of hydrogen fluoride per cubic metre of air, or three parts per million. Permissible levels for hydrogen cyanide - used by the Nazis in gas chambers - are over three times as high. Airbags more dangerous After already suffering a nine-month production delay in China, the last thing Honeywell and Dupont need now is a potential safety scandal that could have ramifications for their business in Europe and beyond. Thanks to incentives offered by the Environmental Protection Agency, the refrigerant is likely to be rolled out widely in the United States as well. The duo's patent-protected monopoly has aroused suspicion by carmakers and envy at other rivals. Europe's ACEA believes Honeywell intentionally concealed its patent process, a claim the company rejects as baseless. French chemical company Arkema prompted the EU to launch anti-trust investigations last December. Honeywell is being examined over w.hether it "abused its dominant position" and "engaged in deceptive conduct" While Honeywell and Dupont concede that HFO1234yf is "mildly flammable," they point to peer-reviewed safety tests from December 2009 that estimate the refrigerant could pose a danger in just one or two cases per year. "The chance of being killed by an inflating airbag is 100 times higher," said Chris Seeton, an engineer from Honeywell leading the development of HFO-1234yf. With much on the line and environmental groups in Germany advocating the industry focus on developing carbon dioxide as a natural refrigerant, things are turning ugly. Honeywell accuses Daimler of designing the test in such a way as to create the desired result, all the way down to the amount of refrigerant found in the A/C system. "We fundamentally believe they knew what they were doing when they went to videotape this," said Honeywell's Seeton. "Their test was engineered for that outcome." By fomenting a fear campaign, his company says, Daimler might be seeking to postpone as long as possible paying the higher costs of the new refrigerant, which they say is ten times as expensive as R134a. "It wasn't until they were under significant economic constraints and this billion-euro cost savings (program was launched) that they brought this issue up," said Terrence Hahn, General Manager for Honeywell's Fluorine Products business. Seeton also believes Daimler might be using safety as an argument to test the EU's resolve, given German carmakers are seeking greater allowance to build cars with dirtier emissions than permitted under current 2020 targets. Daimler dismisses the claims. It says it now faces higher costs from ditching the new refrigerant. 'Guaranteed not to burn' Michel Gabriel, managing director of consultancy Interbrand in Zurich, believes Daimler is justified in taking a cautious stance, given its reputation for producing cars with the highest levels of safety." "In cases where management is aware of a certain problem and knowingly acts anyway, judging a risk to be acceptable, then they might make themselves liable to the accusation that they had acted irresponsibly," he said. "A premium carmaker's most important asset is its brand." The German carmaker won over its first supporter in November in the form of Volkswagen. Its chairman, Ferdinand Piech, said the group would work on developing a new A/C system using CO2, since it is "guaranteed not to burn". Brussels has not received any formal request to delay enforcement of the EU directive yet, but the German auto industry wants six additional months to conduct more tests. "Daimler has raised the highest concern in the European Commission," said a spokeswoman, adding Brussels is "closely following the developments in the relevant investigations". One industry source believes the EU has no choice but to push back the January phase-in of HFO-1234yf, since every carmaker has been caught unprepared. Launching infringement proceedings against the carmakers is a political no-go at a time when the auto industry has its back against the wall. "Just look at Peugeot, Ford or Opel; piling on fines would break their neck," the person said. "There is no alternative to finding a new refrigerant, given the current debate. The Mercedes recall signalled that very clearly. |
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New Sat 15 Dec 12 23:55
New aircon refrigerant regs... - Armel Coussine
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| Corporate Onanists. Heads will or won't roll, and we will have to carry on with good old CFCs until Honeywell and Daimler Benz recover their ruffled dignity and try something else expensive. |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 13:56
New aircon refrigerant regs... - Shiny
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| Ah good old Dupont, every time their patents expire they get their stuff banned as dangerous using ropey science and global lobbying, going right back to 1935 with hemp vs. nylon to CFC aerosol propellant in the 1980's, halon fire extinguishers and various other refrigerants. |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 15:10
New aircon refrigerant regs... - Collos
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| I do not think cars setting on fire and exploding in accidents is ropey science.In Germany it has been suspected for a long time that the gas used in AirCon units has been causing problems but up till now when the TUV and ADAC have got involved everything was denied by the producers.Now its pretty clear that the cause of many accidents and fires was the refrigerant used in cars now an inert gas made from Co2 is to be used from next year. |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 15:29
New aircon refrigerant regs... - Manatee
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Is it just I who am confused? I assumed that sooty was referring to the use of dodgy or other science to get R134a banned. I remember it being the new thing when I got a new Audi - either 1991 or 93, I can't remember which one it was - which would put it's introduction about 20 years ago or around the length of patent protection. I thought the fire hazard was linked to the proposed replacement? Collos seems to be saying that R134a has been associated with "setting on fire" - I thought the problem with R134a was the CFC/ozone one? |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 15:53
New aircon refrigerant regs... - Shiny
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You are right Manatee, it is Dupont Honeywell's new HFO-1234yf project which has backfired. Dupont held the patent on R12 andwhen the patent was about to run out, they used their money and global influence to have it banned and replaced it with R134a, this stops the Chinese and any other Tom Dick and Harry for competing with the, Now the patent of R134a is running out they are doing the same again. They probably wanted HFO-1234yf to last 18 years before they would surrepticiously get that banned as catching fire, but looks like they've been sussed. |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 16:31
New aircon refrigerant regs... - corax
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>> I thought the problem with R134a was the CFC/ozone one? R134a is CFC free and replaced R12 for this reason didn't it? |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 16:37
New aircon refrigerant regs... - Manatee
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,1,1,2-Tetrafluoroethane Seems you're right. HFC apparently. Not so bad for ozone apparently but more of a greenhouse gas problem. |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 20:36
New aircon refrigerant regs... - RichardW
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There are many good refrigerants, trouble is most of them are nasty in one way or another. Ammonia for instance, and many hydrocarbons - just working on the design of an R22 replacement skid that's got about 3.5 tonnes of propylene in it - that will make a big bang if it gets out....! CO2 is a pretty good refrigerant, but the pressures would probably be a bit high for automotive use, and no doubt would have the greens frothing at the mouth. Perhaps we'll just have to resort to winding the window down again. |
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New Sun 16 Dec 12 22:04
New aircon refrigerant regs... - Dave
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CO2 was the preferred new refrigerant by motor manufacturers a few years ago, and certainly BMW and VW had fully working and costed systems. It's a more expensive system due to the pressures involved, but ironically it takes more engine power to operate, so the environmental savings were more than offset by the increased fuel used. R12 was banned for the usual enviro reasons, so all the manufacturers simply sold their plant to the 'developing' countries. So the nett saving environmentally was zero, or probably even less than zero. The various EU governments get all worried about R134a in cars, but don't seem worried that it was being used in things like keyboard duster spray cans, amongst other things. So as well as banning it, they've insisted on expensive equipment and rules for those working on cars, and banning the disposable cans that it came in. Basically pushing up the costs for the end user. Now a familiar story, of course, where any gains seem insignificant, but come at a high cost. I don't know the ins and outs of the patent, but it would have been easier and cheaper for everyone just to make the auto manufacturers guaranty their systems for xx years, as there's no real reason why a well designed and manufactured system can't hold it's gas in for a long time. R134 is fairly safe in that it isn't flammable or explosive, although it does break down into chlorine gas when exposed to flame. |
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