Experimental analysis of vapour compression refrigeration system using nano lubricant with refrigerant R-134a

Abstract

It has been proved that due to addition of nanoparticals to the refrigerant results in improvement in thermophysical properties and heat transfer characteristics of the primary refrigerant, which improves the coefficient of performance of the refrigeration system. In this experimental analysis of vapour compression system, the performance study has been carried out by preparing the nanolubricant. In this experimental study, three cases are considered. The compressor of the system filled with pure polyolester oil, SUNISO-3GS oil and polyolester oil + titanium dioxide nanoparticles as lubricant. In the nanolubricant, the volume concentration of the nanoparticles is 0.2 %. The experimental study shows that vapour compression refrigeration system works smoothly with nanorefrigerant. In this experimental study, it has observed that when nanolubricant used in place of traditional Polyol ester oil, the refrigerating effect has been increased and the compressor power consumption has reduced by 27% and the refrigeration system coefficient of performance improves by 29%. The analysis shows that the enhancement factor in the evaporator is 1.2 when nanorefrigerants are used instead of pure refrigerant. The properties of refrigerant like thermal conductivity and density are also studied for the nanolubricant by using the Labview software, in which the thermal conductivity & the density of R134a and nanolubricant mixture are observed higher in comparison with the R134a and pure lubricant mixture.