I found this whilst rummaging through a box of automotive A/C tools ! Person selling it said it was refrigerant ...which it is R-12 I believe. In any case, i bought it for a buck !

Gonna fuel up my Valkyrie II that's been a shelf queen in Vermont and have some fun !

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It is likely (still) illegal to release it into the atmosphere, since Freon-12 was banned many years ago. But since pleasing the EPA has never been a priority of mine, I would take even greater pleasure in launching a Cold Propellant or Coldpower Convertible model rocket.

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I figure stuff like that was compressed out of the atmosphere so what is wrong with putting it back?
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Yep, back from the good old days when ANYBODY could walk into ANY auto supply or five-n-dime and pickup up cans of freon 12 for less than a buck... and fix their air conditioner in their car THEMSELVES. THe stuff is just relabeled Freon 12... Estes must have made a deal with some manufacturer to silk-screen their name and designation onto the can. This was back in the days when Freon was typically used to power spray cans like hairspray, air freshener, etc...

Then the "greenies" started screaming that it eats holes in the ozone layer, and they banned the stuff, right about the time DuPont's patent was up and it was gonna go generic and be dirt cheap, and right about the time DuPont "conveniently" came out with the replacement R-134A that everything is using nowdays... (and which has a lot of problems, but they're FINALLY engineering the bugs out of it). Of course the laws changed banning the stuff (and the release of ANY refrigerant into the atmosphere, as R-134A AND R-12 are REQUIRED to be pumped out of the system when A/C work is required on a vehicle, the refrigerant is then filtered and pumped into a storage tank, and then the mechanic charges you to get your own freon back when he refills the system after fixing your car AC, to pay for the several-thousand dollar freon recovery machine...

It's a mess...

I'd fly the thing anyway... heck jetliners put THOUSANDS OF TONS of worse pollutants than R-12 into the air EVERY year, and inject it DIRECTLY into the upper atmosphere... nobody has YET plausibly explained how freon 12, released at GROUND LEVEL, being several times heavier than air, manages to get to the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere... heck working in a shop next to a pit, you had to be careful working on freon systems, because if the freon leaked, it would fill up the pit and push all the air out, and any mechanic working in there could pass out and even die if nobody noticed he conked out... the stuff isn't "compressed out" of the atmosphere; it's a chemically engineered molecule containing chlorine and flourine... course nobody seems to worry about chlorine used in industry, bleaches, and cleaners being released every day, or flourine outgassing from flouridated water and contaminating the biosphere... just this one particularly handy molecule...

More "junk science" striking again...

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cool

Another little known fact on the R-12 bans was that the biggest emitters by far were the big defense contractors, especially the General Dynamics plant in Ft. Worth TX. DOD requirements had them dipping circuit boards into vats of R-12 to clean them. This practice remained for years after the R-12 ban. It was estimated that GD, Boeing, NA-Rockwell, and McD-D emitted almost all the R-12 atmospheric emissions. A/C leakages were miniscule and cold power rockets were not even in the error band.

Put the bottle in the corner and use airbrush propellant instead. Works just as good.

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Leo

My rocket fleet and more @ Leo's Leisure Site and on YouTube - My latest project: ALTDuino

I have to agree with Leo. Save it for the conversation it will generate.
Take it to a meet to show off. Someone might offer you a small wad of dead presidents and take it off your hands! (so he can do the same thing!)

Allen

Quite true... I read that halon, which is typically used on aircraft fire suppression systems and is a close relative of freon 12, if even worse than freon when it comes to it's supposed ozone eating effects... and halon was pretty much dumped by the ton anywhere there were aircraft.

I wouldn't be surprised by the aircraft manufacturers... when rocket tanks were constructed in the old days, the metal was hydroformed into the correct dome segment shapes and stuff, then welded together manually or mechanically in jigs. The completed tanks, lines, valves, rocket engines, etc. had to be spotlessly clean after manufacturing, especially oxygen tanks where even the oil from a stray fingerprint on the inside of a tank, valve, or oxygen line could potentially cause an explosion if the oxygen ignited from it. SO, the tanks were cleaned-- basically they were washed out with freon, since it wouldn't leave any residue behind and would boil off entirely at atmospheric temperature and pressure. Needless to say, this took a LOT of freon...

Later! OL JR

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That can produces less harmful gas than the daily output of your average hippie's goat.

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