Volkswagen choose CO2 as a Refrigerant

With the world very eco and money conscious at the moment it is no surprise that when it comes to cars everything is looking to reduce their CO2 emissions and their costs. However Volkswagen have come up with an unusual solution to going green. When we think of CO2 we usually associated this with having a negative impact on the environment but Volkswagen have decided that they are now going to use it in their refrigerant in mobile air conditioning systems across all of its vehicles.

They reached this decision because the refrigerant known as R744 actually has low global warming potential of just “one”. This figure is 99.3% below what the EU specify which is 150 in MAC (mobile air conditioning) systems. In most MAC systems at the moment the refrigerant used, R134 and according to statistics reported by the US Environmental Protection Agency has a global warming potential of 1,300.

Investigations into reducing emissions from MACs have been ongoing since the 1990s. There was nearly a decision for the refrigerant R1234 to be chosen although Daimler found safety issues with it. This was discovered in September of last year through their internal tests so decided against using the refrigerant and BMW and Volkswagen also chose not to.

The chosen refrigerant by Volkswagen is CO2 because it is viewed as an A1 refrigerant and is also not flammable with limited amounts of toxicity. It is also the least likely refrigerant to have an impact on the environment.