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Mercedes-Benz to Launch First CO2-Based Air Conditioning Systems in 2017

Back in 2013, there was a whole saga about Mercedes-Benz and their refrigerant agent, not unlike the one Volkswagen is going through right now, but on a smaller scale. It lasted a little more than a month, but saw the carmaker eventually prevail by overruling a court decision in France that banned the sale of certain Mercedes models in the Hexagon.
Mercedes-Benz CO2 air conditioning 1 photo
Photo: Mercedes-Benz
That whole debacle revolved around the EU directive that comes into effect on January 1, 2017, and regulates the use of chemical substances as cooling agents in air conditioning systems. The culprit’s name was R134a, an extremely powerful greenhouse effect gas that Mercedes-Benz continued using in its vehicles, arguing that the EU proposed substitute posed the risk of a great fire hazard in case of an accident. Long story short, Mercedes-Benz eventually won the trial and selling resumed.

Today, though, Mercedes-Benz uses the only other substance apart from CO2 that meets the future requirements of the EU directive for air conditioning systems in vehicles. This new chemical is called R1234yf, and as Mercedes-Benz has been saying for the past few years, it has different flammable characteristics than the R134a.

That’s exactly why Mercedes-Benz uses a special system that keeps the resulting refrigerant/air mixture from hitting the hotspots of the engine in case of a severe frontal crash. More than that, inert argon gas is sprayed over the engine’s hot parts, cooling them down even further.

As for the CO2, the first vehicles to use it will be the new E-Class and the S-Class flagship, but only starting with 2017. These completely newly developed systems are very quick and offer a high cooling performance.

The downside is that CO2 air conditioning systems operate at a pressure of over 100 bar, approximately ten times greater than today’s systems. This means that almost all components need to be redesigned, including hoses and seals. But there’s also a bright part, one that shows the growing camaraderie inside the automotive industry: as a pioneer in the field, Mercedes-Benz has proposed a standardization of these units that would allow further companies to skip a few stages and start with an advantage. It’s all done hoping this high-tech air conditioning systems will quickly penetrate the market and become the norm as soon as possible.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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