GHG invented a substitute for CFC-12 (aka
Dupont FREON-12(R)) refrigerant in his kitchen in August 1990. It
is known as GHG REFRIGERANT-12 SUBSTITUTE and it is
now manufactured at People's Welding Supply (next to Nick's) on
the Levee in W. Lafayette. It has been used in over 2,000 cars
and over 10,000 pieces of other refrigeration equipment. ASHRAE
has designated it as R-406A refrigerant. CFC-12 (FREON-12(R)) has
been linked to the destruction of the Ozone layer. On August 26,
1994 the US EPA "approved" (listed on the SNAP list)
GHG for most retrofit uses except for cars. It appeared in the
August 26 FEDERAL REGISTER.
(postscript), or PDF format.(Adobe
Acrobat)
GHG holds two US patents, numbers 5,151,207
and 5,214,929 on this invention.
On 4/14/95, GHG was interviewed on the Sam Steiger radio & TV talk show originating in Phoenix, AZ, on the subject of refrigerants and R-406A. Recently the Arizona state legislature had passed a bill authorizing production of CFC-12 refrigerant in violation of federal law. As of 4/14/95, the so called "Freon Bill" was on the governor's desk for signature. On 4/17/95, Governor Fife Symington, signed the bill into state law!
The entire interview lasted around 25 minutes and is broken down into 16 smaller sound clips. Sounds are mono, sampled at 8000 hz, in ".au" (mulaw) Sun format.
This second interview was announcing R-406A to be legal for automotive on 9/18/95. Also performance discussion, and discussion of GHG "High Performance" refrigerant.
On 7/13/95, a rule change took effect which ended up stopping the 9/18/95 "legal-to-sell" [for cars] date. However, the EPA SNAP approval process [for automotive] is still pending.
The paper A DROP-IN CFC-12 REPLACEMENT FOR AUTOMOTIVE AIRCONDITIONING was presented at the 1992 International Refrigeration Conference held at Purdue University, July 1992. It describes the initial invention of GHG Refrigerant-12 Substitute(R) and early automotive uses.
CFC-12/OIL fire
From a slide shown during the conference presentation. A mixture
of CFC-12 and 15% by volume of Suniso 5GS compressor mineral oil,
typical of what is found inside an automotive Airconditioning
system, was vented (May 1991, before the EPA ban on venting) and
ignited. GHG is on the left, and Bob Miller is on the right. As
one can see, R-12 and oil burn just fine.
SOME SAFETY STUDIES OF A TERNARY
REFRIGERANT (postscript) was presented at the 1994
International Refrigeration Conference held at Purdue University,
held July 19-22. Same file in PDF
format (Adobe Acrobat)
.