Comparative assessment of environment-friendly alternatives to R134a in domestic refrigerators

In the present work, the possibility of using R152a and hydrocarbon refrigerants (such as R290, R1270, R600a, and R600) as alternatives to R134a in domestic refrigerators has been assessed theoretically. The refrigerants are assessed over wider range condensing and evaporator temperatures. The assessment was done with standard parameters such as pressure ratio, volumetric cooling capacity (VCC), coefficient of performance (COP), compressor input power, compressor discharge temperature, and total equivalent warming impact (TEWI). The results obtained showed that pure hydrocarbon refrigerants are not suitable to be used as alternatives to R134a due to its mismatch in VCC. R152a has approximately the same VCC with about 9% higher COP and lower values of operating pressure and compressor input power. The discharge temperature of R152a was higher than that of R134a by about 14-26 K. TEWI of R152a was about 7% lower than that of R134a. The reported results proved that R152a is an energy-efficient and environment-friendly alternative to phase out R134a in domestic refrigerators.