New Nissan FCV Vehicle Has CO2 AC
Tokyo – Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. announced
today that the X-TRAIL FCV fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) it started
leasing Monday under its FCV limited leasing program come
equipped with an air-conditioning system jointly developed by
Nissan and Calsonic Kansei Corp. that uses carbon dioxide as
the refrigerant. Since the thermal property of CO2
is different from current
refrigerant, CO2 is especially effective in heating
a vehicle compared with the HFC-134 alternative refrigerant
used in other automotive air-conditioning systems. In the
CO2 system, heating is accomplished by switching to
the refrigerant channel so that the refrigerant can be
compressed and supplied to the passenger compartment heat
exchanger from which it radiates heat. In other automotive
air-conditioning systems, a hot engine coolant that has been
heated by the engine heat is circulated through the heater core
to warm the passenger compartment. Until now, fuel cell
vehicles and electric vehicles (EVs) have had the drawback of
not providing very effective cabin heating because they lack a
heat source as they do not have an internal combustion
engine. The CO2 air-conditioning system uses the
same process as ordinary automotive air-conditioners to cool a
vehicle. The refrigerant – in this case CO2 -- is
evaporated by a passenger car compartment heat exchanger to
absorb heat and cool the vehicle’s cabin. CO2 is a naturally occurring, non-flammable
refrigerant and is more environmentally friendly than the
HFC-134a alternative refrigerant. The new CO2 system
can help to reduce the amount of CO2 discharged from
factories because CO2 waste from factories can be
reused for use in the system. The implementation of the new air-conditioning system
has been made possible in part by the successful development of
a compact, lightweight compressor capable of withstanding the
high temperature and high pressure needed to compress
CO2. Another contributing factor is the successful
development of a heat exchanger capable of withstanding the
high pressure and temperature of the highly compressed
CO2 gas supplied from the compressor. Moreover, the power loss that ordinarily occurs in a
small car when the air conditioner is operated while driving
can be reduced with this air-conditioning system through
suitable control of the compressor torque. Further development
work is now under way with the aim of using this CO2
air-conditioning system on vehicles powered by a gasoline
engine. ＃＃＃