On-road performance analysis of R134a/R600a/R290 refrigerant mixture in an automobile air-conditioning system with mineral oil as lubricant

R134a has been accepted as the single major refrigerant in the automobile industry and it has been used worldwide. But, the problem associated with it is the use of the PAG oil as the lubricant. Unlike the conventional mineral oil, the synthetic PAG oil used with R134a is highly hygroscopic in nature. The PAG lubricants come with different additives unique for different compressors. This leads to serious service issues. Therefore, a refrigerant, which will be readily available to replace R12, and also compatible with mineral oil, is needed. In the present study the readily available R134a is used in place of R12. However, to avoid PAG oil and to use the conventional mineral oil as lubricant, R134a is mixed with the commercially available hydrocarbon blend, (45.2% R290 and 56.8% R600a) in the proportion of 91% and 9%, respectively by mass. The quantity of hydrocarbons used is well below the lower flammable limit. This new mixture R134a/R600a/R290 is tested in the air-conditioning system of a passenger car ‘on road’ in the true running conditions and compared with the results that has been obtained with R12. The cool down performance under varying speed and varying ambient conditions, system performance under severe accelerating conditions and bumper-to-bumper traffic conditions is studied. The test results show that the new blend can be a promising substitute for the existing R12 systems and it can eliminate the use of hygroscopic PAG oil.