Abstract
In comparison with conventional refrigerants, the use of non-azeotropic binary mixtures of refrigerants in vapor compression refrigerating systems can result in extension of the application limits, higher reliability, and savings in power consumption. This paper discusses the high temperature heat pump system performance operating with mixed refrigerants.
In order to survey the system performances with various mixtures, six kinds of mixtures are examined : R22-R1l4, R22-R11, R12-R114, R12-R11, R 12-R113, and R22-R12. Thermodynamic properties of the first five mixtures are calculated from the Peng-Robinson equation of state with the mixing rules proposed by Ototake, and R22-R12 mixtures by the BWR type equation of state proposed by Kagawa et al.
When counter-flow heat exchangers with large surface areas are used for the evaporator and the condenser, the temperature differences between the refrigerant and the heat sink / source fluids can be reduced, and so the energy waste resulting from irreversible heat trasfer can be reduced. Comparing the mixed refrigerants with the pure ones by fixing the refrigerant temperature at the evaporator inlet and the dewpoint temperature at the condenser, higher coefficients of performance (COP), lower condensing pressures, and lower pressure ratios in the refrigerant compressor can be realized. But the performances of the mixtures with R114 as a less volatile component are not so good. When the heat transfer surface area is not large, the mean temperature difference becomes large. If the dewpoint temperatures at the evaporator and the condenser fixed, the range of composition for the improvement of the COP is restricted.
