Air conditioned intercooler?

[pjrose@servtech.com (Phil & Judy Rose)]

>
>Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 10:56:51
>From: Mike Arman <armanmik@n-jcenter.com>
>Subject: Air conditioned intercooler? and mouse update (?)

>Did a little research on gas refrigerators: The gas flame heats a mixture
>of ammonia, which vaporizes and has heat exchange characteristics similar
>to freon (or actually the reverse, ammonia was here first).

[snip]

>Problem is that the ammonia solution is highly corrosive, so the entire
>system will have to be made of stainless steel and/or some kind of rugged,
>long-lived plastic (yeah, right!). ("Your evaporator is leaking - that's a
>bazillion dollars for a new one, and you need a new car because the liquid
>ate a hole through the car and down to China.")
>
>Idea was to replace the freon A/C system entirely - I still think it's a
>good idea, but don't have the engineering background to make it go. Also, I
>have other priorities! Graydon? Are you listening?

Ammonia refrigeration, AFAIK, doesn't use a "solution" of anything. It uses
ammonia gas, which like freons, can be easily compressed (condensed) to the
liquid state. Ammonia vapor in high doses is very irritating to mucous
membranes and is caustic, but I don't think it's in the china syndrome
"highly corrosive" category you imply--assuming reasonable choices are made
for the system (e.g., stainless steel rather than copper; actually it's
possible that aluminum might work fine. A possible problem might be that
some rubber hoses are too permeable. But if an (exterior) ammonia
refrigeration system sprang a leak, it wouldn't smell pleasant-but would
sure let you know right away that you had a problem. And it would be ozone
friendly ;-) And cheap.

BTW, farmers routinely spray the stuff (liquid ammonia) as a quick-acting
fertilizer.

Phil
'91 200q
'89 100