Hi, just out of curiosity I was wondering: How do car air conditioners work? My parents have always said something about freon, and my chemistry teacher mentioned it the other day. Yet I looked it up on the internet, and it was banned back in 1995 because it was a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which totally kills the ozone layer. What do they use to cool the air now? Thanks.
2007-02-28 09:04:09 · 5 answers · asked by Matt B 3 in Cars & Transportation ➔ Maintenance & Repairs
r12 freon is what was banned,134a is the new freon for auto a/c
2007-02-28 09:13:13 · answer #1 · answered by doug b 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
freon is the gas used to circulate within the airconditioning system, it is a refridgerant. i think it used to be called 'R22' in the UK and can by it from BOC (british oxygen company). lots of industrial gases are now banned, Argon fire extinguishers are banned except under special license. air conditioning works like this: there are two radiators, one inside the air conditioned area and one outside. with two pipes between them ., (a flow and return) the gas goes round in a circle inside the pipes. what happens is the first radiator inside the car/office has a fan behind it and pushes the air in the office through the radiator, the gas in the radiator is cold, therefore the air that comes through it is chilled. As any pyhsics teacher will tell you energy is never lost just transferred, so the coolant within the radiator has now accepted the warmth of the air passed through it and it goes along a pipe to a radiator outside the area, under the bonnet/outside the office and another fan blows air across it to take away the stored heat, thus cooling it ready for the coolant to be circluated again through to the office/car to cool the air again. basically its a heat exchanger.
2007-02-28 17:20:05 · answer #2 · answered by fast eddie 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It still works the same way. The only difference is that they now use a gas called R-134a instead of freon. The principle remains the same, however.
2007-02-28 18:15:44 · answer #3 · answered by Me 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Freon or R-12 was used in earlier car a/c. They now use R-134a.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-134a
2007-02-28 17:12:44 · answer #4 · answered by gkk_72 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Use the link kindly provided by 'gkk_72'. Its great.
My contribution here would be to emphasize that air-cons don't cool the air, they remove the heat. Your chemistry teacher should have known that!
2007-02-28 17:20:15 · answer #5 · answered by ? 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋