Exergy and energy analysis of three stage auto refrigerating cascade system using Zeotropic mixture for sustainable development

Abstract The Zeotropic mixture of environment friendly refrigerants (HC’s and HFC’s) being the only alternatives for working fluid in low temperature refrigeration system and hence three stage auto refrigerating cascade (ARC) system was studied for the existence using two combinations of (R290/R23/R14, R1270/R170/R14) three component Zeotropic mixture of five different refrigerants. The exergy analysis confirmed the existence of three stage ARC system. The performances of the system like Coefficient of Performance (COP), exergy lost, exergic efficiency, efficiency defect and the evaporating temperature achieved were investigated for different mass fractions in order to verify the effect of mass fraction on them. In accordance with the environmental issues and the process of sustainable development, the three component Zeotropic mixture of R290/R23/R14 with the mass fraction of 0.218:0.346:0.436 was performing better and hence can be suggested as an alternative refrigerant for three stage ARC system operating at very low evaporating temperature in the range of 176 K (−97 °C) at COP of 0.253 with 58.5% exergic efficiency (comparatively 22.6% increased value).

[1]  Donald J. Cleland,et al.  Use of hydrocarbons as drop-in replacements for HCFC-22 in on-farm milk cooling equipment , 2009 .

[2]  Gadhiraju Venkatarathnam,et al.  Effect of mixture composition on the formation of pinch points in condensers and evaporators for zeotropic refrigerant mixtures , 1999 .

[3]  N. Takata,et al.  Condensation of downward-flowing zeotropic mixture HCFC-123/HFC-134a on a staggered bundle of horizontal low-finned tubes , 1997 .

[4]  Jianlin Yu,et al.  Application of an ejector in autocascade refrigeration cycle for the performance improvement , 2008 .

[5]  S. Klein,et al.  NIST Standard Reference Database 23: NIST Thermodynamic and Transport Properties of Refrigerants and Refrigerant Mixtures-REFPROP, Version 6.0 | NIST , 1998 .

[6]  Li Zhao,et al.  Analysis of zeotropic mixtures used in low-temperature solar Rankine cycles for power generation , 2009 .

[7]  Per Lundqvist,et al.  A method to estimate the circulated composition in refrigeration and heat pump systems using zeotropic refrigerant mixtures , 2001 .

[8]  Hanqing Wang,et al.  Performance comparison of air source heat pump with R407C and R22 under frosting and defrosting , 2008 .

[9]  Maoqiong Gong,et al.  Development of a −186 °C cryogenic preservation chamber based on a dual mixed-gases Joule–Thomson refrigeration cycle , 2012 .

[10]  Mark O. McLinden,et al.  NIST Thermodynamic and Transport Properties of Refrigerants and Refrigerant Mixtures-REFPROP , 1998 .

[11]  A. Rozhentsev.  Refrigerating machine operating characteristics under various mixed refrigerant mass charges , 2008 .

[12]  Eric W. Lemmon,et al.  Equations of State for Mixtures of R-32, R-125, R-134a, R-143a, and R-152a , 2004 .

[13]  Dale J. Missimer.  Refrigerant conversion of auto-refrigerating cascade (ARC) systems , 1997 .

[14]  Xing Jin,et al.  A new evaluation method for zeotropic refrigerant mixtures based on the variance of the temperature difference between the refrigerant and heat transfer fluid , 2011 .

[15]  A. Stegou-Sagia,et al.  Evaluation of mixtures efficiency in refrigerating systems , 2005 .

[16]  M. M. Rahman,et al.  A supercritical Rankine cycle using zeotropic mixture working fluids for the conversion of low-grade , 2011 .

[17]  Fabio Polonara,et al.  Blends of carbon dioxide and HFCs as working fluids for the low-temperature circuit in cascade refrigerating systems , 2005 .

[18]  Steven Lecompte,et al.  Exergy analysis of zeotropic mixtures as working fluids in organic rankine cycles , 2014 .

[19]  S. Anand,et al.  Exergy analysis and experimental study of a vapor compression refrigeration cycle , 2012, Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry.

[20]  Kai Du,et al.  A study on the cycle characteristics of an auto-cascade refrigeration system , 2009 .