Study of the Relationship Between the Surface Treatment and the Odors from Automobile Air-Conditioning Cores

Nuisance odors from the climatic system of passenger cars, have put in alert the evaporator manufacturers to implement solutions in order to eliminate or reduce the intensity of those odors.

There is not much information available in the literature concerning the odors in the climatic system, however, it is recognized that the most important factors contributing to the nuisance odors development in the air conditioning system are: the architecture of the air conditioning system, and the surface treatment of the evaporator.

The aim of this paper is to compare the performance, corrosion resistance, and nuisance odors among different surface treatments available in the industrial market and propose solutions to reduce their intensity.