Exergy Investigation of R410A as a ‘Drop In’ Refrigerant in a Water-Cooled Mechanical Vapor Compression Cycle

Abstract

The urge to replace hydrofluorocarbons which possess high global warming potentials has taken center stage in the air conditioning industry due to both international and local policies such as the Kigali Amendment and Japan’s revised Fluorinated Gas law. This has prompted the exploration of novel refrigerants as well as their mixtures to create high performance environmentally friendly alternatives. These refrigerants can be integrated into existing systems as ‘drop in’ refrigerants, which provide a simpler and low cost substitution process to replace environmentally harmful refrigerants such as R410a. R410a is currently a widely used refrigerant in air conditioning systems, but is to be phased out of use under the Kigali Amendment by the late 2040s. Thus to compare the suitability of replacing this refrigerant with environmentally friendly ‘drop in’ alternatives, a preliminary baseline investigation on a mechanical vapor compression chiller with R410a is conducted via performance and exergy indicators. The testing procedure utilized Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Standard 551/591 which revealed an optimum charge amount of 0.70 kg with a peak performance near 88% of full capacity. The heat exchanger overall heat transfer coefficients showed varying trends, whilst the exergy destruction was as expected highest for the compressor.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to express their gratitude to Mr. K. Takezato and Mr. S. Senba for their contributions during the experimental stage and also to the Advanced Graduate Program in Global Strategy for Green Asia under the Program for Leading Graduate Schools for their funding.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Colombatantirige Uthpala Amoda Perera

Colombatantirige Uthpala Amoda Perera is a Doctoral Student at Kyushu University, Japan. He belongs to the Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences under the Advanced Graduate Program in Global Strategy for Green Asia which is a Program for Leading Graduate Schools in Japan. He was conferred a B.Eng. (Mechanical) Hons. degree from the National University of Singapore and a M.Eng. degree from Kyushu University. His research is related to mechanical vapor compression air conditioners and their performance evaluation, whilst currently he is also focusing on thermophysical properties of low GWP refrigerants and their mixtures.

Nobuo Takata

Nobuo Takata received his Doctoral degree from the Institute of Materials Chemistry and Engineering, Kyushu University. He has an extensive industrial experience while working at Fuji X-Ray and as an Engineer at the Institute of Industrial Science, Kyushu University. He is currently working as a technical specialist at Kyushu University Graduate School of Science and Engineering. His research work extends from the detection of spontaneous combustion and gas protrusion in coal mines, to the condensation phenomena of CFCs, to research on immersion boiling and cooling of chips with micro-pin fins. At present, he is working on the vapor compression heat pump cycles utilizing refrigerant mixtures with CO2 as well as low GWP alternatives.

Takahiko Miyazaki

Takahiko Miyazaki is a Professor in Department of Advanced Environmental Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University. He holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Chuo University, Japan and MSc in Renewable Energy and Architecture from the University of Nottingham, UK, and PhD in Engineering from Tokyo Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), Japan. He worked as an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Engineering, TUAT before he joined Kyushu University as an associate professor at Kyushu University in 2011. He promoted to a full professor at Kyushu University in 2017. His specific research interests are in energy savings by utilization of low grade thermal energy. He is involved in several research projects, and currently working on “Research and development of waste heat driven cooling heat pump for automobiles” in Thermal Management Materials and Technology Research Association (TherMAT). He has published more than 150 articles in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings. He supervised a Japanese book on “Low Temperature Waste Heat Utilization Technologies by Adsorption Refrigerators/Heat pumps”.

Yukihiro Higashi

Yukihiro Higashi is a Professor at the Research Center for Next Generation Refrigerant Properties (NEXT-RP), International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research(I²CNER), Kyushu University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Keio University, Yokohama, Japan in 1986. Since 1987, he got the position of Assistant Professor at Iwaki Meisei University, Fukushima, Japan. In 2000, he became a Professor at the Iwaki Meisei University and he has been in his current position at Kyushu University since 2016. In 1998, he was a guest researcher of Thermophysical Properties Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST), Boulder, Colorado, USA. His career in research is focused on thermophysical property measurements of refrigerants and their mixtures, especially the measurement of critical point, PvT properties, vapor-liquid equilibrium and surface tension. He had been awarded Sadi Carnot Awards by the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), Asian Academic Award by JSRAE(Japan), CAR(China), SAREK(Korea) and Best Paper Awards 2009/2010 and 2014/2015 by International Journal of Refrigeration (Elsevier). He has been the member of countless refrigeration and mechanical engineering organizations such as JSRAE, JSME, JSTP and HTSJ. He is currently focusing on research regarding thermophysical property measurements of low Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) refrigerants.

Bidyut Baran Saha

Bidyut Baran Saha is a Professor and Principal Investigator at the International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER) of Kyushu University, Japan. He received his B.Sc. (Hons.) and M.Sc. degrees from Dhaka University of Bangladesh. He received his Ph.D. in 1997 from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Japan. His research interests include thermally powered adsorption systems, heat and mass transfer analysis, and energy efficiency assessment. He has published more than 400 articles in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings. He has edited seven books and holds twenty-one patents. Recently, he served as managing Guest Editor for Applied Thermal Engineering, Heat Transfer Engineering and International Journal of Refrigeration.

Kyaw Thu

Kyaw Thu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Advanced Environmental Science and Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University. He completed his Ph.D. degree at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2010. His research interest includes heat and mass transfer in processes, adsorption science and technology, HVAC&R systems, thermophysical properties of refrigerants and numerical techniques for process simulation. Currently, he is serving as an Executive Editor of the Evergreen - Joint Journal of Novel Carbon Resource Sciences & Green Asia Strategy. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed international journal papers and several conference papers. One of his papers has been recognized as one of the most cited articles in the International Journal of Refrigeration (IJR) since 2012.