A Study on the Performance of HCFC22 and Alternative Refrigerants in Heat Pumps

열펌프를 이용한 R22대체 혼합냉매의 성능에 관한 연구

This paper is concerned about the performance of HCFC22 alternative refrigerants used in heat pumps and industrial chillers. A water-to-water breadboard heat pump with counter-current heat exchangers and a hermetic compressor was built to carry out the experiments with various refrigerants. For each test, more than 40 temperatures, 4 pressures, power input, mass flow rates of the heat transfer fluids were measured. Refrigerants tested were HCFC22, R290(Propane), an azeotrope of 45%Propane/55%R134a mixture, and a nonazeotropic mixture of Calor 50. All tests were conducted under ARI test A condition. It is found that the COP and capacity of propane were 18% and 2.5% higher than those of HCFC22 while the COP and capacity of 45%Propane/55%R134a mixture were 3.5% and 5.3% higher than those of HCFC22 respectively. Also the COP and capacity of Calor 50 were 17% and 7.8% higher than those of HCFC22. Compressor discharge temperatures of alternative refrigerants were roughly $35^{\circ}C$ lower than that of HCFC22 indicating that these refrigerants are good from the view point of compressor reliability. The charging amounts for the alternative refrigerants were reduced by 40-60% as compared to that of HCFC22. Overall, it can be said that hydrocarbon containing alternative refrigerants are excellent in thermodynamic performance but should be used with considerable care due to their flammability.