Technical and economic review of the reconversion of refrigerants in an air conditioner: HFCF to HC in Honduras

Abstract

This paper presents the result of a non-experimental investigation on the reconversion of an air conditioner replacing its refrigerant R22 for R290 to achieve a more environmentally sustainable system. First a cooling load analysis was conducted to determine the thermal power that must be extracted from the working area. An ideal thermodynamic cycle was designed based on the usual performance of this system; Engineering Equation Solver was used to analyze the system performance. To study R290 implementation in the original system two cases were proposed: maintaining the same cooling capacity and using 50% of the original mass for the new refrigerant. In the first case capacity flow mass rate, mass charge, compression ratio and refrigerant effect was better for R290, but COP and EER was higher in R22 systems determining a better performance overall. In the second analysis a better performance for the system was obtained. Also, an economic overview of the reconversion is offered, resulting in a cost benefit higher than 1 which indicates a project where the inversion made turns in benefits in long term. To end the emissions of each refrigerant was calculated and R290, as expected, showed considerably lower emissions compared to R22.