Refrigerant in car (Photo: bizoo_n / Fotolia.com) According to EU guidelines, the new compound R1234yf should in future be used as the refrigerant in air-conditioning systems for automobiles. But the compound is inflammable, and LMU chemists have now shown that combustion of the cooling agent leads to the formation of the highly toxic carbonyl fluoride. “It has been known for some time now that combustion of R1234yf results in production of the toxic hydrogen fluoride. Our analysis has now shown that 20% of the gases produced by combustion of the compound consist of the even more poisonous chemical carbonyl fluoride,” says Andreas Kornath, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at LMU Munich. He and his co-workers have just published the results of their investigation in the journal Zeitschrift für Naturforschung. Carbonyl fluoride is structurally related to phosgene (which contains chlorine in place of fluorine), which was used as a chemical weapon during the First World War. The simplest fluoride, hydrogen fluoride (or hydrofluoric acid, HF) is also highly corrosive and so toxic that burns about as big as the palm of one’s hand can be lethal. The agent binds avidly to calcium in body fluids, and this can result in heart failure unless
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