Why Do Compressed Air Cans Get Cold?

Thanks to http://brilliant.org/minutephysics for supporting MinutePhysics - get 20% a premium subscription at http://brilliant.org/minutephysics

Support MinutePhysics on Patreon! Patreon: minutephysics
Link to Patreon Supporters: http://www.minutephysics.com/supporters/

This video is about compressed air cans (aka gas dusters) and why they get cold when you spray them. They cool off because the refrigerant inside (1,1-difluoroethane) is under pressure and boils off when the pressure lowers, and energy lost to the latent heat of vaporization cools the can a lot. Difluoroethane normally boils at -25°C (-13°F), but under ~6 atm (6 bar, 600 kpa) it is a liquid at room temperature. The gas also cools off slightly due to the Joule-Thompson effect of fluid expansion through a throttled valve. Difluoroethane is heavier than air and water soluble, so it is recommended to use it in a ventilated environment to clean your keyboard, etc. Also, 1,1-difluoroethane is a potent greenhouse gas. It is also known as Freon 152a, Ethylidene difluoride, Ethylidene fluoride, HFC-152a, R-152a, and DFE.

Thanks to Tino and Hannah!

REFERENCES

CRC Air Duster Safety Data Sheet
http://docs.crcindustries.com/msds/51...

Latent Heat of vaporization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latentheat

1,1-difluoroethane chemical and physical properties
https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cg...

1,1-difluoroethane on wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,1-Dif...

Free Expansion of Real Gases, Goussard, 1993
http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.17417

Joule-Thompson Expansion Course Notes
http://tccc.iesl.forth.gr/education/l...

Properties of 1,1-difluoroethane
http://www.inchem.org/documents/sids/...
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/comp...

Medical Effects of difluoroethane
https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/si...


MinutePhysics is on twitter - @minutephysics
And facebook - Facebook: minutephysics
And Google+ (does anyone use this any more?) - http://bit.ly/qzEwc6

Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Created by Henry Reich

• #science_technology
• #physics
• #minutephysics
• #science
• #difluouroethane
• #difluoro_ethane