Share

IIR document

Natural refrigerants for light commercial applications: a fair comparison of the pros & cons of CO2 and propane.

Number: pap. 1099

Author(s) : ELBEL S., HRNJAK P.

Summary

Glass door merchandisers are used in grocery and convenience stores to display chilled beverages or refrigerated foods. Among the natural refrigerants available, only propane (R290) and carbon dioxide (CO2, R744) are realistic candidates to replace currently used HFC refrigerants. While many of the thermodynamic and transport properties of R290 are favorable over R744, propane is listed as an ASHRAE A3 refrigerant and therefore bears an inherent flammability risk even when the refrigerant charge is limited to 150 g or less as required by applicable safety standards. While it seems possible to design and implement safe, low-charge hydrocarbon refrigeration systems, some manufacturers prefer solutions that completely eliminate the flammability risk and therefore focus on R744, which is a non-flammable, non-toxic, natural refrigerant listed as ASHRAE A1. The challenges encountered with R744 are mostly due to lower performance at elevated ambient temperatures requiring a transcritical cycle, which often makes R744 systems more expensive for designs that are aimed at providing comparable cooling capacity and energy efficiency. Therefore, the component and system design challenges encountered with the two fluids are very different, which drives design solutions in very different directions. This study elaborates on the different fluid-specific challenges that are inherent to the each of the two refrigerants and demonstrates the resulting consequences in terms of system and component design. Since the cooling target is the same in both cases, the pros and cons of R290 and R744 can be fairly compared and meaningful conclusions can be drawn.

Available documents

Format PDF

Pages: 8 p.

Available

  • Public price

    20 €

  • Member price*

    Free

* Best rate depending on membership category (see the detailed benefits of individual and corporate memberships).

Details

  • Original title: Natural refrigerants for light commercial applications: a fair comparison of the pros & cons of CO2 and propane.
  • Record ID : 30019062
  • Languages: English
  • Source: 12th IIR Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Refrigerants (GL2016). Proceedings. Édimbourg, United Kingdom, August 21st-24th 2016.
  • Publication date: 2016/08/21
  • DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18462/iir.gl.2016.1099

Links


See other articles from the proceedings (140)
See the conference proceedings

Indexing