An analysis of alternative refrigerants to optimise the performance of a vapour compression refrigeration cycle

This paper investigates the performance of alternative refrigerants with low Global Warming Potential and zero Ozone Depletion Potential. The application here is the working fluid in vapour compression refrigeration cycles. A vapour compression refrigeration cycle model was developed in MATLAB and tested with refrigerants R1234ze(E), R134a, R32, R407C and ECP410a. The performance of each refrigerant was analysed against the baseline refrigerant R134a using cooling capacity, coefficient of performance, Carnot coefficient of performance and compressor power as the performance parameters. The results show that the cooling capacity of the vapour compression refrigeration cycle can be successfully optimized by 159.44% with ECP410a, 70.28% with R32 and 5.96% with R407C. The tests also demonstrated that an increase in coefficient of performance of 28.05% with ECP410a, 217.92% with R32 and 32.21% with R407C can be achieved. Whereas the results showed that the use of R1234ze(E) yielded a decrease in performance of -9.52% for cooling capacity and -16.10% for coefficient of performance. It was also determined that the use of R32 could yield a decrease in compressor power by 46.50%.