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Energy efficiency assessment of a hybrid transcritical CO2-compression-absorption heat pump system for heating and cooling in the dairy industry.

Author(s) : BENIWAL R., GARG K., TYAGI H.

Type of article: IJR article

Summary

The dairy industry demands high energy consumption due to simultaneous heating requirements for pasteuri zation and cooling demands for milk storage, which is conventionally fulfilled by separate energy-intensive systems. This study presents a comprehensive comparative analysis of three combined heating and cooling systems for milk pasteurization, with emphasis on evaluating the overall energy consumption of each system. The research evaluates a conventional ammonia-based vapour compression refrigeration system (VCRS) coupled with electrical resistance heating as the baseline technology, a standalone transcritical CO2 (TCCO₂) system, and a novel hybrid configuration- integrating TCCO2 refrigeration system with a compression-absorption heat pump (CAHP) cycle proposed in the present study. This innovative hybrid system utilizes waste heat from the TCCO₂ gas cooler (GC) to drive the CAHP generator. The CAHP absorber delivers the required pasteurization temper ature of 72 ◦C and the TCCO₂ evaporator provides cooling at 4 ◦C for milk storage. Performance analysis reveals significant energy efficiency improvements with our newly proposed hybrid system. The conventional NH3-based system with electric heating achieves a combined coefficient of performance (COP) of 1.50, while the standalone TCCO₂ system demonstrates a COP of 1.22 when optimized for heating requirements, though this COP can be increased to 2.5 when excess cooling capacity is fully utilized. The proposed hybrid TCCO₂-CAHP system ach ieves the highest combined COP of 2.83, representing an 88% improvement over the baseline conventional system and consumes only 28.95 kW electrical power for processing 1 kg/s of milk, highlighting its potential as a sustainable and efficient solution for the dairy sector.

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Details

  • Original title: Energy efficiency assessment of a hybrid transcritical CO2-compression-absorption heat pump system for heating and cooling in the dairy industry.
  • Record ID : 30034843
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: International Journal of Refrigeration - Revue Internationale du Froid - vol. 187
  • Publication date: 2026/07
  • DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2026.106945

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