Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering (설비공학논문집)

The Society of Air-Conditioning and Refrigerating Engineers of Korea (대한설비공학회)
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Performance of Alternative Refrigerants for R12 and R134a in Automobile Air-Conditioners

자동차 공조기용 R12 및 R134a 대체 냉매의 성능평가

  • 백인철 (인하대학교 대학원 기계공학과) ;
  • 박기정 (인하대학교 대학원 기계공학과) ;
  • 심윤보 (인하대학교 대학원 기계공학과) ;
  • 정동수 (인하대학교 기계공학과)
  • Published : 2007.05.10
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Abstract

In this study, natural refrigerants and their mixtures that can supplement and replace R12 and R134a in automobile air-conditioners are studied. R134a is currently used as the refrigerant in new motor vehicle air conditioners, replacing the ozone depleting refrigerant R12. Although R134a has no ozone depletion potential, it has a relatively large global warming potential, approximately 1300 times that of $CO_2$ over a 100 year time horizon. For this reason, performance of natural refrigerants and their mixtures containing R152a, RE170 (Dimethylether, DME) and R600a (Isobutane) are measured under 2 different temperature conditions. They were tested in a refrigerating bench tester with an open type compressor. The test bench provided about 4 kW capacity and water and water/glycol mixture were employed as the secondary heat transfer fluids. Test results show that the coefficient of performance (COP) of these refrigerants is up to 21.55% higher than that of R12 in all temperature conditions. Overall, these fluids provide good performance with reasonable energy savings without any environmental problem and thus can be used as long term alternatives for automobile air-conditioners.

Keywords

References

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