Solubility of Carbon Dioxide in Some Commercial Poe Oils

The paper presents the measurements of the solubility of carbon dioxide in three different commercial polyolester (POE) oils commonly used for refrigeration and air conditioning applications and characterised by the same standard viscosity, namely: Castrol Icematic SW32, ICI Emkarate 32 and Mobil EAL Arctic 32. The solubility was measured at T = 333 K with a static method and the samples were prepared synthetically. Estimated accuracies of the measured parameters are ±0.03 K for temperature, ±2 kPa for pressure, and ±0.005 for the liquid phase mass fraction. The preliminary GC analysis of the oils involved in the present study showed quite different spectrums suggesting a different composition of each of the oils. The obtained results showed, however, that differences in solubility are negligibly small. The observed differences could not be quantified by us in relation to the oils composition, since there are no information of the producers regarding the additives used, that might influence the properties of the refrigerant + oils systems, including the total solubility.