Exploring Eco-Friendly Gas Mixtures for Resistive Plate Chambers: A Comprehensive Study on Performance and Aging

Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) are gaseous detectors widely used in high energy physics experiments, operating with a gas mixture primarily containing Tetrafluoroethane (C2H2F4), commonly known as R-134a, which has a global warming potential (GWP) of 1430. To comply with European regulations, the RPC EcoGas@GIF++ collaboration, involving ALICE, ATLAS, CMS, LHCb/SHiP, and EP-DT communities, has undertaken intensive R&D efforts to explore new environmentally friendly alternative gas mixtures for RPC technology.A leading alternative under investigation is HFO1234ze, boasting a low GWP of 6 and demonstrating reasonable performance compared to R-134a. Over the past few years, RPC detectors with slightly different characteristics and electronics have been studied using HFO and CO2-based gas mixtures at the CERN Gamma Irradiation Facility. An aging test campaign was launched in August 2022, and during the latest test beam in July 2023, all detector systems underwent evaluation. This contribution will report the results of the aging studies and the performance evaluations of the detectors with and without irradiation.