Performance Study of the Eco-Friendly Hydrofluoroolefins and Dimethyl-Ether Refrigerants in Refrigeration Systems

Abstract

This paper presents theoretical investigation of the performance of eco-friendly hydrofluoroolefins (R1234yf and R1234ze) and dimethyl-ether (RE170) refrigerants as Substitutes for R134a in a standard vapour compression refrigeration system. The results showed that the vapour pressure of R1234yf and RE170 are very close to that of R134a, while vapour pressure of R1234ze between the temperature ranges of -30 to 40oC, deviated by 25.3% high. Very high refrigerating effect and condenser duty were obtained using RE170, which shows that it will equally perform excellently as refrigerant in heat pump. The condenser duty obtained using R1234yf and R1234ze are slightly lower by 17.2 and 9.9% than that of R134a, respectively. RE170 and R1234yf exhibited very close volumetric refrigerating capacity with R134a. The average Coefficient of Performance (COPref) obtained using RE170 is 6.2% higher than that of R134a, while the COPref obtained for R1234yf and R1234ze are slightly lower by 6.1 and 0.9%, respectively. Generally, the performance of the three alternative refrigerants is quite similar to that of R134a, but the best overall performance is obtained using RE170.