Alternative refrigerants in vapour compression refrigeration cycle for sustainable environment: a review of recent research

Vapour compression refrigeration is used in almost 80 % of the refrigeration industries in the world for refrigeration, heating, ventilating and air conditioning. The high-grade energy consumption of these devices is very high and the working substance creates environmental problems due to environmental unfriendly refrigerants such as chloroflurocarbons, hydrochloroflurocarbons and hydroflurocarbons. Heating, ventilating, air conditioning and refrigeration industries are searching for ways to increase performance, durability of equipments and energy efficiency in a sustainable way while reducing the cost of manufacturing. With the present refrigerants, environmental problems such as ozone layer depletion, global warming potential, green house gases and carbon emission are increasing day by day. In this paper, the popular refrigerant is thoroughly studied experimentally and recommendations are given for alternatives such as carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrocarbons and new artificially created fluid, Hydro-Fluoro-Olefin 1234yf by DuPont and Honeywell which exhibit good thermo-physical and environmental properties and will be commercialized in the near future.