General Motors will hope to boost the environmental performance of models across all its brands – including Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac – with a new air conditioning refrigerant.
The HFO-1234yf refrigerant, supplied by Honeywell, breaks down in the atmosphere faster than the refrigerant currently used – R-134a. On average, R-134a has an atmospheric life of more than 13 years meaning a global warming potential of more than 1,400. However, by contrast, the new refrigerant has a global warming potential of just four with an atmospheric life of just 11 days. This means its global warming potential is 99.7 per cent below that of the existing refrigerant.
The move to the new refrigerant will help General Motors to meet the overall requirements of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s new motor vehicle greenhouse gas regulations. At the moment, the new regulation requires an overall improvement of 40 per cent in US fleet average fuel economy by 2016.
Indeed the new refrigerant has received strong backing. A two-year co-operative research programme conducted by SAE International declared that HFO-1234yf could be the global replacement refrigerant in future air conditioning systems and it can safely be accommodated through established industry standards for design, engineering and manufacturing.
