Yasuaki Mori

Coolant Development in Asia

Historically speaking, there have always been three major regions, North America, Europe, and Asia, where antifreeze/coolant developments take place independently. These developments were based on the perceived needs of the engine manufacturers, influenced by governmental/regulatory authorities, and heavily influenced by the requirements geography placed upon automobile manufacturers [1–3]. In the early days of ethylene glycol based engine coolants, simple inhibitor systems based on borates, phosphates, etc., and utilizing a soft metal inhibitor were sufficient to satisfy the needs of a cast iron engine and copper brass radiator. With the advent of aluminum engines and their rapid usage growth throughout the 1980s and 1990s, engine manufacturers of the regions began to place more stringent requirements on the anticorrosion performance of the OEM coolants. Based on the specific strategies utilized by the cooling system component manufacturers, divergent requirements began to be placed upon the coolant makeup. This paper will speak generally to the regional history of coolant trends and specifically on the activity for coolant development in Asia.