(73c) Minimum Ignition Energy Measurement for Explosive Disproportionation of New Refrigerant Trifluoroethylene

AGC announced the new refrigerant AMOLEA in 2014. This new refrigerant is an environment-friendly refrigerant whose global warming potential is one-sixth even though the refrigerator performance is equivalent to that of conventional R410A. Trifluoroethylene as the main component of AMOLEA has such a remarkable performance, however it has a problem that when specific conditions such as temperature, pressure and ignition source are met, it disproportionates like tetrafluoroethylene which has a similar chemical structure to trifluoroethylene, and which is known that it shows a disproportionation reaction explosively. In order to conduct safety analysis for actual air conditioner use, it is necessary to evaluate under high pressure using electric spark ignition. When it is tried to evaluate by electric spark ignition under high pressure condition used in flammability test , it was too difficult to generate a spark to evaluate.We have developed a movable ignition device utilizing electromagnetic induction and carried out safety analysis of disproportionation reaction of trifluoroethylene under high pressure by using electric spark ignition. As a result, it became clear that trifluoroethylene had a very large minimum ignition energy of disproportionation reaction which was 6.33 J (ignition probability 1%) at 1 MPa, 373K. The minimum ignition energy in typical hydrocarbons is around tens mJ, and the minimum ignition energy in the disproportionation reaction of trifluoroethylene is much larger. This result seems to be one reason for considering hydrofluoroolefins as candidates in the process of developing environmentally friendly refrigerant.