Evaluation of methods to decrease the discharge temperature of R32 scroll compressor

Recently, R32 has been considered as an important alternative in application of small to middle capacity air conditioner by many countries due to its advantages such as low global warming potential (GWP), favorable thermal properties, less refrigerant charge and low cost. However, the much increased discharge temperature of R32 compressor, as compared with the R22, becomes the main barrier affecting the wide and quick alternation. Refrigerant injection has proven to be effective in decreasing discharge temperature. In this work, three kinds of refrigerant injection technology used to decrease the discharge temperature of R32 scroll compressor are discussed, namely, two-phase suction, liquid injection and two-phase/gas injection. The detailed scroll compressor model proposed in previous work is modified and validated by experimental data of R32 scroll compressor. The potentials in decreasing discharge temperature of the three methods are investigated. The detailed performance comparisons are presented. The results indicate that the two-phase/gas injection achieves the best performance with the enhancement of cooling capacity by 14.2% and increase in COP by 8.1%