Performance investigation of domestic refrigerator using pure hydrocarbons and blends of hydrocarbons as refrigerants

A domestic refrigerator designed to work with R-134a was used as a test unit to asses the possibility of using hydrocarbons and their blends as refrigerants. Pure butane, isobutene and mixture of propane, butane and isobutene were used as refrigerants. The performance of the refrigerator using hydrocarbons as refrigerants was investigated and compared with the performance of refrigerator when R-134a was used as refrigerant. The effect of condenser temperature and evaporator temperature on COP, refrigerating effect, condenser duty, work of compression and heat rejection ratio were investigated. The energy consumption of the refrigerator during experiment with hydrocarbons and R-134a was measured. The results show that the compressor consumed 3 and 2 less energy than that of HFC-134a at 28°C ambient temperature when iso-butane and butane was used as refrigerants respectively. The energy consumption and COP of hydrocarbons and their blends shows that hydrocarbon can be used as refrigerant in the domestic refrigerator. The COP and other result obtained in this experiment show a positive indication of using HC as refrigerants in domestic refrigerator