(C) Global Journal Of Engineering Science And Researches [22-31] GLOBAL JOURNAL OF ENGINEERING SCIENCE AND RESEARCHES POTENTIAL REPLACEMENT TO CHLOROFLUOROCARBON REFRIGERANTS – A REVIEW

Present day mankind depends very heavily on refrigeration and air conditioning systems for daily needs. These cover a wide range of applications such as food processing, comfort cooling, health and recreation etc. Refrigerants are the working fluids for refrigeration and air conditioning systems. Generally refrigerants are classified into various types on the basis of their physical and chemical changes during the course of operation. The most preferred type of the refrigerant mixture is zeotropic mixtures. Refrigerants emit green house gases and these gases have a significant impact on the environment. Global warming and ozone depletion are the most important environmental issues caused by the refrigerants. Refrigerants are the derivatives of alkanes namely methane and ethane. Chloroflurocarbon, hydrochloroflurocarbon, hydroflurocarbon and hydrocarbon are the major chemical compounds which are used as refrigerants since 1970s. The presence of chlorine and fluorine in the derivatives of methane and ethane modifies the emission of green house gases and their impacts. The present study deals with the drawbacks of existing refrigerants and also finding a suitable replacement to the presently used working fluids with respect to their chemical compositions, thermodynamic properties and environmental properties. The results obtained from this study supported that the blend of R410A (CH2F2/C2HF5:50/50 by mass)/R600a (C4H10) as a potential replacement for R22 (CHClF2). Keywords:Refrigerants, chemical composition, thermodynamic properties, ozone depletion, global warming I