Studies on new Eco-Friendly Gas Mixtures for RPC operations

In three LHC experiments Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) are employed in the muon trigger and they work with a gas mixture containing C2H2F4 (commercially known as R134a) and SF6. These gases are considered greenhouse gases, whose emission contributes to the environment global warming. New E.U. regulations have already started limiting the sold quantity of such gases and controlling their use, with possible future impact on price and availability. Hence it is suggested to search for new eco-friendly gases that doesn’t change the required performances of RPCs. Substituting R134a, measurements with HFO and HFCs, gases with a lower impact, are already on-going since few years. In this report the focus was on finding a replacement for the SF6, in particular the acquisition with C4F8O instead of SF6 will be presented. This new gas is not as performing as the one already used and it is a suitable substitute to solve prices and availability problems, not the emissions ones. It is also presented a revision of two pulse analysis scripts used with the aim of write a unique and more efficient software to analyze events from RPCs. Lastly is exposed a study on currents of RPCs, previously irradiated at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility.