Share

Modeling of an ultra-low temperature refrigeration system for independent vaccines and medical supplies storage.

Number: 2400

Author(s) : BANI ISSA A. M. Abd, PERGANTIS E.N., BREHM J. K., GROLL E. A., ZIVIANI D.

Summary

The need for low-temperature refrigeration systems to maintain and transport vaccines and other medical supplies has grown since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Current technologies are characterized by capacity limitations and inefficient performance. Therefore, there is a need to design new systems that overcome these difficulties. Although low-temperature refrigeration systems still benefit from HFC replacement exceptions, the ongoing phase-down of existing HFC refrigerants requires additional research to identify low global warming potential (GWP) substitutes. Some COVID-19 vaccines must be stored at ultra-low temperatures (ULT) between -90 °C and -60 °C to prevent doses spoilage. Other medical supplies, for example, antibiotics and plasma, require storage temperatures of roughly -20 °C. Therefore, multi-temperature refrigerated containers are typically used to deliver medical supplies globally. This study investigates different low-GWP refrigerants and cycle architectures for a two-compartment refrigeration system. As such, the cascade cycle architecture has been found to provide the highest coefficient of performance (COP) compared to other vapor compression cycles. This work examines five multi-stage compressor cascade cycles, each with its economizer configuration, with the refrigerants selected to be propane (R290) and ethane (R170) for the high and low-stage cycles, respectively. The proposed systems were compared under the same operating conditions to a simple cascade cycle with R404A/R508B as the refrigerant pair, representing the most used architecture for ULT refrigeration systems. Both first and second laws of thermodynamics were employed to quantify cycle and component irreversibilities along with opportunities for furth

Available documents

Format PDF

Pages: 10 p.

Available

Free

Download

Details

  • Original title: Modeling of an ultra-low temperature refrigeration system for independent vaccines and medical supplies storage.
  • Record ID : 30030713
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: Technology
  • Source: 2022 Purdue Conferences. 19th International Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Conference at Purdue.
  • Publication date: 2022

Links


See other articles from the proceedings (224)
See the conference proceedings

Indexing