Refrigeration Applications: Environmental Impacts of Automotive Refrigerants

As efforts grow to make automobiles friendlier to the environment, there have been renewed efforts in several areas to gain better understanding of the effects of system designs. For automotive air conditioning, this has led to detailed analyses of the air-conditioning system and efforts to devise better designs that minimize impact on the environment. Among topics deserving scrutiny is the choice of refrigerant and the impact of this choice on our goals to provide greener systems. Since the Montreal Protocol, the auto industry has predominately adopted hydrofluorocarbons (R-134a) as the preferred refrigerant.

Citation: ASHRAE Journal, vol. 42, no. 9, September 2000



Product Code(s): D-6034