[alfa] So who invented freon refrigerant?

["John Fielding" <johnf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In a recent post I saw:

The whole thing about the 'new' freons is probably even MORE comical than
the scare mongering that DuPont put out about ammonia (which is about the
BEST refrigerant there IS) when they developed the first freon (R-12) !!!!
Now they are even calling NH3 'poisonous' --presumably because a number of
knowedgeable folks suggested going back to ammonia when the greenies
decided R-12 was a bad thing !!! Yeah, right---something that we
manufacture IN OUR OWN BODIES is a POISON !!!

I was under the impression that Freon was invented by Thomas Midgley jr and
Charles
Kettering of GM as a replacement for ammonia when he designed the aircon for
Cadillac.
Somewhere I found a website witht he details.  It stated that the ammonia
based
refrigerants were too bulky to make an efficient cooling system to fit into an
automobile
and so he developed the more efficient freon which enabled a compact and
effective
aircon to be fitted to the cars.  If you do a Google search I am sure you will
turn up the
details.

Here is one link to a description of the invention of freon.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfreon.htm

Which says:

In 1930, General Motors and DuPont formed the Kinetic Chemical Company to
produce Freon.
By 1935, Frigidaire and its competitors had sold 8 million new refrigerators
in the United
States using Freon made by the Kinetic Chemical Company. In 1932, the Carrier
Engineering
Corporation used Freon in the world's first self-contained home air
conditioning unit,
called an "Atmospheric Cabinet".

Side Note: The trade name Freon . is a registered trademark belonging to E.I.
du Pont de
Nemours & Company (DuPont).

Charles Franklin Kettering was a graduated chemical engineer who turned his
hand to many
interesting electrical applications.  His first job on graduating was to
design an
electric cash register for NCR.  In the time immediately following this he
founded the
Dayton Engineering Laboratory Company, now know as DELCO, the main design was
a gasoline
powered electric lighting plant which sold to thousands of mid-west farmers.
He was then
recruited by GM to design the electric starter (so opening up the automobile
market to
female drivers who could not swing a starting handle)  and the coil ignition
system, which
still bears his name, the Kettering system.  One of the outcomes of the new
electric
ignition system was it showed up an apparent weakness with the poor fuel types
then
available which caused detonation.  Not to be put off "Boss Kett", as he was
affectionately known, cured this by developing tetra-ethyl lead as an octane
booster. He
is best known for his involvement with the automotive industry but he also
developed many
other types of things, for example during the second world war he developed a
synthetic
fuel for aero engines.  In later years he designed laminated safety glass for
autos, spark
plugs, servo assisted brakes etc.

So Kettering is apparently responsible for two undesirable chemical
formulations, freon
and tetra-ethyl lead.

Just thought you would like to know.

John
Durban
South Africa
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