Transcritical CO2 Refrigeration Research Articles

ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS OF TRANSCRITICAL CO2 SUPERMARKET REFRIGERATION CYCLES WITH DEDICATED MECHANICAL SUBCOOLER

Refrigerants with high environmental impact are being prohibited by legal authorities. The commercial refrigeration sector, a huge contributor to emissions, is transitioning to environmentally friendly CO2 systems. Despite the environmental benefits of CO2, its low critical temperature and high operation pressure can lead to lower performance in warm climates compared to other refrigerants. Therefore, performance improvements are being made for transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycles. This paper presents energy and environmental analysis of transcritical booster (BRC), parallel compression (PRC), and ejector expansion (ERC) supermarket refrigeration cycles with dedicated mechanical subcooler (DMS) as well as transcritical cycles without DMS circuits, and subcritical R404A conventional system. R134a, R1234yf, and R290 were studied as working fluids for DMS circuits. Annual energy consumption and total equivalent warming impact (TEWI) values were compared for İstanbul, Konya, and Samsun in Türkiye, which are in different climate zones, as a case study. The case study constitutes the novelty of this paper. Up to 11% annual energy savings were obtained using CO2 cycles with DMS compared to R404A conventional system. CO2 cycles have up to 58.4% lower total TEWI values than R404A conventional system

Two-phase radial ejector for transcritical CO2 refrigeration

Transcritical refrigeration systems using natural refrigerants like CO2 operate on the ejector–expansion cycle to achieve high operating efficiency. The variability of ejector geometry dictates the adjustability of refrigerating capacity in such systems. Traditional spindle-controlled axial-flow ejectors significantly obstruct the high-pressure motive flow to regulate mass flow rate by controlling flow area. This study introduces the first radial-flow ejector geometry for transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems, designed to operate at high mass flow rates and entrainment ratios with minimal obstruction to motive flow. The study numerically investigates the performance of a radial-flow two-phase ejector for CO2, comparing it with an axial-flow ejector of similar dimensions under the same conditions. It explores the impact of applied compression ratio, motive nozzle throat spacing, and other geometries on radial ejector performance. An increase in the motive throat spacing improves the range of operable discharge pressures and achievable compression ratios, with a slight reduction in the secondary flow entrainment. A nozzle throat spacing of 0.6 mm allows a wider range of operable discharge pressures, and beyond this, the operable discharge pressure range drops. The addition of a diffuser section of sufficient length also improves the flow entrainment in the radial ejector. The radial ejector allows substantially high mass flow rates of even 15 times that of the axial ejector. This high mass flow capacity in the radial configuration can significantly compact ejector designs for large-capacity transcritical CO2 refrigeration and air-conditioning systems.

Thermodynamic analysis and comparison of mechanical subcooling transcritical CO2 refrigeration system with expander and throttling valve

Thermodynamic analysis and comparison of mechanical subcooling transcritical CO2 refrigeration system with expander and throttling valve

Energy, exergy, and economic analysis of a novel solar-assisted ejector subcooling CO2 transcritical refrigeration systemt

To further enhance the performance of transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle (base cycle), a solar-assisted ejector subcooling transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle (SESRS) is proposed. The base cycle is subcooled utilizing a solar-assisted ejector refrigeration cycle. This research performed energy, exergy, and economic evaluations of SESRS utilizing the eco-friendly refrigerant R152a in the ejector cycle based on the established model. The thermodynamic analysis results demonstrate that SESRS outperform the base cycle. At typical working conditions, the COPm of the SESRS demonstrates a 22.96 % increase compared to that of the base cycle. Although the total cost of the SESRS is 7.98 %–17.9 % higher than that of the base cycle when subcooling degree is 5 °C, the enhancement of COPm is larger and is increased by approximately 18.34 %–26.22 %. The impact of subcooling degree and other parameters on system performance are also investigated. Overall, this study confirms the potential of the SESRS system for utilization in the refrigeration and air-conditioning fields. Considering both the system’s performance and economy, further optimized analysis should be done on key operational parameters, such as subcooling degree and discharge pressure.

Model-based improvement of a trans-critical CO2 refrigeration plant

Abstract Refrigeration sector including heat pumps, cryogenics and air conditioning is responsible for a share close 10% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, a huge effort of the scientific and industrial community is needed on the development of technologies allowing to reduce the environmental impact of this sector. The use of CO2 as working fluid has great interest in food chain conservation and participates to the problem of the impact produced by the traditional synthetic fluids, recently oriented also to hydrocarbons. Main problem of plants using CO2 as working fluid is the low COP, which reduces even more in moderate or hot climate regions in which low temperature thermal energy is more required. To assess the benefits introduced by plant optimization and innovative technologies, many advanced thermodynamic models are developed in the last years. Anyway, few software platforms are developed for the comprehensive analysis of plant behaviour. To fill this gap, this paper presents the results of a theoretical and experimental research done on an industrial trans-critical CO2 refrigeration plant. The aim was to set up energy saving solutions finalized to mitigate the intrinsic low COP values. A detailed physically consistent model of the unit has been developed following an integrated zero and mono-dimensional thermo-fluid-dynamic approach. The propagative, capacitive, and inertial properties of the components have been considered, so going beyond of the theoretical approaches that are typical in the sector. A wide experimental characterization of the unit has been done with the aim to validate the model and to use it as tool to predict the effect on the COP of the operating variables. The reduction of the compressor absorption and the potentiality of the energy recovery from energy usually wasted have been analysed.

Comparative thermodynamic study of CO2 transcritical supermarket booster refrigeration system combined with vapor injection and parallel compressionÉtude thermodynamique Comparative du système de réfrigération transcritique de supermarché au CO2 combiné à l'injection de vapeur et à la compression parallèle

The use of CO2 refrigerants in supermarket refrigeration has recently demonstrated great potential owing to their excellent thermophysical properties and environmental protection. To further improve the efficiency of transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems, a parallel compression cycle with vapor injection system (SRC) is proposed. Thermodynamic model is established to investigate the influence of working condition parameters and compared with basic booster refrigeration system (BRC) and parallel compression refrigeration system (PRC). In addition, the effect of vapor injection parameters on the characteristics of the proposed system is investigated. The results show that the medium pressure has little effect on BRC, while the optimum value exists for both PRC and SRC. The performance of the three systems can be significantly enhanced by optimizing the discharge pressure and medium pressure. The optimal value of the relative vapor injection pressure is constant at about 1.15. The maximum coefficient of performance (COPmax) of the SRC is significantly improved by 23.99%∼32.14% and 14.44%∼20.07% at disccussed working conditions compared with BRC and PRC, respectively. In summary, this paper confirms the performance enhancement potential of the proposed cycle and provides theoretical support for its practical implementation.

Experimental comparison of cycle modifications and ejector control methods using variable geometry and CO2 pump in a multi-evaporator transcritical CO2 refrigeration system

To reduce the direct global warming impact of refrigerants in HVAC&R applications, low-global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants, including natural refrigerants, have been extensively investigated as alternatives to hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants. Among the natural refrigerants, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) offers several advantages, such as excellent transport and thermo-physical properties, being neither toxic nor flammable, and having a low price and high availability around the world. However, the high critical pressure and low critical temperature of CO2 often lead to transcritical operation, resulting in lower efficiency due to the additional compressor power necessary to achieve transcritical operation relative to subcritical HFC cycles. Therefore, a number of cycle modifications are used to enhance the coefficient of performance (COP) of transcritical CO2 cycles to meet or surpass those of HFC cycles. This paper provides a systematic experimental investigation of four such cycle architectures by employing the same multi-stage, two-evaporator CO2 refrigeration cycle test stand, 3 of these configurations in transcritical and 1 in subcritical conditions. The four cycles architectures included intercooling, open economization, an internal heat exchanger and two different ejector control approaches. Specifically, a variable-diameter motive nozzle and a variable-speed liquid CO2 pump located directly upstream of the ejector motive nozzle inlet were analyzed. Based on the experimental data, the maximum COP improvements are 4.64 % and 9.47 % when the ejector and the internal heat exchanger are used, respectively. The CO2 pump, once successfully stabilized, can control the ejector, increase its efficiency by up to 15 % and increase the cooling capacity to a maximum of 6.2 %. Nevertheless, a reduction in COP is measured when the pump is in use; however, unlike the other three different configurations, it was only analyzed under subcritical conditions.

Performance analysis of sub-cooled transcritical CO2 refrigeration system using vapour absorption refrigeration system and dew point evaporative cooling

Shifting towards natural refrigerants is expected to reduce the environmental damage in terms of refrigerants leaks, as they have zero ozone depletion potential as well as minimal global warming potential. A CO2 transcritical cycle is analysed thermodynamically in this study. Further, to improve the performance of the CO2 system, a vapour absorption refrigeration system (driven by the heat available at the exit of the compressor) has been integrated with it. Also, to counter the effects of hot climatic conditions, in Indian context, a dew point evaporative cooling system is further utilized to take up the heat from the gas-cooler. A thermodynamic and economic study of the proposed integrated system is performed. The effect of various performance parameters; such as ambient dry bulb temperature, relative humidity, evaporator temperature has been studied on the overall performance of the system. Compared to the base case, the coefficient of performance is improved in the range of 40%–270 %, for the hybrid systems, under the different climatic conditions. Moreover, the proposed system provided a low-cost performance of about 0.024 $/kWh, as compared to the base case consumption of about 0.05 $/kWh.

Effect of Inter-Stage Pressure on Performances of Two-Stage Transcritical CO2 Refrigeration Cycle with Dedicated Absorption Dual-Subcooling and Mechanical Recooling

Effect of Inter-Stage Pressure on Performances of Two-Stage Transcritical CO2 Refrigeration Cycle with Dedicated Absorption Dual-Subcooling and Mechanical Recooling

Thermodynamic analysis of a modified two-stage transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle with an ejector and a subcooler

In the application scope of large-scale supermarkets, the practicality of transcritical CO2 refrigeration device has been confirmed to be quite satisfying. A modified two-stage transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle with an ejector and a subcooler (MTC) is proposed in this paper. In the modified cycle, the ejector recovers expansion works and reduces irreversible losses in the throttling process. The subcooler provides subcooling degree for the CO2 entering the low-temperature (LT) evaporator, thus increasing the refrigeration capacity and improving the COP of the modified cycle. Thermodynamic analysis has shown that the exergy efficiency (ηex) and COP of MTC under given operating condition has been enhanced by 13.7 % and 14.2 % compared to BTC. The discharge temperature at the outlet of high-pressure compressor in MTC is decreased by 8.3℃. Under typical operating condition, the optimal discharge pressure of MTC is 9.07 MPa, which is lower than that of BTC. The correlation to calculate optimal discharge pressure for single-stage CO2 refrigeration cycle is also suitable for MTC under given operating conditions. The MTC has also shown better performance under variable operating conditions. For MTC, when the temperature at the outlet of gas cooler increases from 35 – 45℃, the COP and ηex are enhanced by 14.1 % - 16.1 % and 12.8 % - 14.2 % compared to BTC, respectively. When gas cooler outlet pressure decreases from 11.0 to 7.5 MPa, the COP and ηex are enhanced by 14.0 % - 22.8 % and 13.4 % - 18.7 %. As the evaporating temperature at the cold side of subcooler increases from -25 to -15℃, the COP and ηex increase from 1.82 to 1.98 and 27.4 % to 29.7 %. With the ratio of refrigeration capacity (Rec) between medium-temperature evaporator and low-temperature evaporator varies from 0.7 to 1.2, the COP and ηex are improved by 10.7 % - 16.3 % and 10.7 % - 15.4 % compared to BTC. There is the maximum exergy loss at gas cooler in the MTC, whereas that of BTC is located in the expansion valve before LT evaporator. The economic analysis shows the cost per unit of exergy of MTC is decreased by 11.5 % under typical operation condition. According to simulation results, the modified cycle has better performance in severe working conditions such as high gas cooler outlet temperature and low gas cooler outlet pressure in the given range of working conditions compared to BTC.

Refrigerant charge influence on the performance of a transcritical CO2 system with flash-tank for low-temperature refrigeration

While the use of CO2 as a natural refrigerant become widespread, there is a scarcity of research on refrigerant charge effects in transcritical CO2 refrigeration applications, especially for systems with flash-tank and two-stage compressors. In this work, an experimental investigation of the effect of the Normalized Refrigerant Charge (NRC) on the parameters and performance of a Flash-Tank Vapor Injection (FTVI) CO2 refrigeration system is carried out. Within the explored NRC range of −0.02 to 0.247, an optimal NRC of 0.18 was identified that yields a maximum COP regardless of operating conditions. Results suggest that typical operating parameters such as temperature and pressure are not being affected by the NRC because of the charge buffering function of the flash-tank. However, the liquid–vapor separation capacity of the flash-tank causes a reduction in the refrigeration capacity when the system is not charged properly. This refrigeration capacity detriment related to undercharged conditions becomes more severe under high ambient temperatures, with a maximum COP penalty of 20 % when comparing the lowest charge versus the optimal charge performances at a gas cooler outlet temperature of 40 °C.

Genetic algorithm-based optimization of combined supercritical CO2 power and flash-tank enhanced transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle for shipboard waste heat recuperation

The shipping industry significantly contributes to global trade and economy, but is also responsible for approximately ∼3 % of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Harnessing waste heat from marine vessels to perform useful work is a potential solution to reduce these emissions. Although the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and CO2 cycles have been studied separately for waste heat recovery, a combined power and refrigeration systems, utilizing both cycles have not been reported. Herein, a combined system, “Marine Energy Recovery System (MERS)”, that integrates the supercritical CO2 Brayton power cycle with a flash-tank-enhanced transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle, is proposed, aiming to generate power and provide cooling simultaneously. The power cycle incorporates an ORC, and a flash-tank is introduced within the refrigeration cycle to improve system performance. Both cycles share a low-temperature recuperator and a gas cooler to further utilize the heat between them. The MERS is evaluated from both a 1st and 2nd law perspective against various performance metrics under different operating conditions, such as: gas cooler pressure, evaporation temperature, and turbine inlet temperature and pressure. Results elucidated that the MERS achieved energy and exergy efficiencies of 54.62 % and 54.90 %, respectively, representing significant improvements over similar systems. The net work output improved by 717.55 kW and the net cooling capacity by 515.7 kW relative to the reference system. Furthermore, a COP of 2.99 outlines its potential as a cooling system. To further enhance MERS’s performance, a multi-objective optimization approach is employed, utilizing Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). Optimal operational conditions yielded an energy efficiency of 74.95 % while maintaining a net work output of 6890.55 kW with gas cooler pressure, turbine inlet temperature, and gas cooler outlet temperature being 9.5 MPa, 461.76°C and 50°C respectively. These findings support the reliability and improved design of the MERS for future marine applications.

Experimental investigation of a transcritical CO2 refrigeration system incorporating rotary gas pressure exchanger and low lift ejectors

Natural refrigerants like CO2 are playing a significant role in making refrigeration and heat pump systems climate-friendly by slowly phasing out the high global warming refrigerants like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). However, the efficiency of a transcritical CO2 refrigeration system declines significantly when the ambient temperature increases, primarily attributed to the high-pressure lift and the losses incurred during expansion. To remedy this issue, this paper presents a novel rotary gas pressure exchanger (PXG) device, which simultaneously achieves high differential pressure expansion work recovery and the “free compression” of the portion of the flash gas in a compact, rotary machine. For this, a PXG device is designed, fabricated, and tested to achieve free compression of CO2 over the entire differential pressure of approximately 70 bar between a receiver and a gas cooler. This is one of the highest free-pressure lift provided by any device to date in CO2 refrigeration. However, there is a small pressure loss of approximately 1–2 bar in the system due to viscous and inertia losses in the piping and in the PXG itself, which needs to be overcome by an external booster device. Results on a baseline PXG integrated system with two low lift booster compressors are presented, which show up to 60 bar free pressure lift and up to 18.2 % COP improvement provided by PXG. Additionally, key performance characteristics of the PXG, like the expansion work recovery, the mass boost ratio, direct fluid-to-fluid contact, and no pass-through operation are experimentally quantified. This work also presents a novel method to integrate two low lift ejectors with PXG to eliminate the need for separate low lift compressors. The low lift ejectors are designed, fabricated, and tested in-house, followed by their integration with the PXG device. A new type of transcritical CO2 refrigeration system is designed to integrate these low lift ejectors with PXG, and experiments are conducted at various evaporator thermal duties and gas cooler exit temperatures, simulating varying ambient temperature conditions. A novel control system to control the gas cooler pressure to optimal thermodynamic levels using PXG rotational speed is demonstrated experimentally. Further, automated control of high-pressure low lift ejector mass flow using an in-built needle design has been successfully demonstrated to optimise PXG mass boost performance. The LP low lift ejector achieved a successful pressure lift of 3.8 bar, and the HP low lift ejector showed a lift of 5.7 bar on the top of 42 bar free pressure lift provided by PXG for up to 5.8 kg/min mass flow delivered by free PXG compression. The results from this study demonstrate that the PXG device provides a significant energy efficiency improvement to the transcritical CO2 refrigeration system, and the novel low lift ejectors, when integrated with PXG, provide a successful method to maximise PXG’s thermodynamic potential.

Performance investigation of a supergravity CO2 refrigeration cycle under off-design conditions

The transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle is a research hotspot in CO2 refrigeration technology, but it suffers from significant throttling, compression, and gas cooling losses. The recently proposed supergravity CO2 refrigeration cycle, which utilizes centrifugal potential energy-pressure energy conversion in the rotating heat exchanger, provides a new approach to address these issues. However, the flow efficiency of the serpentine rotating channels requires further validation, and the operating characteristics of the system under off-design conditions need exploration. To this end, we first conducted a study on the pressure drop characteristics of a serpentine rotating channel using experimental and numerical simulation methods. We found a strong linear relationship between the friction factor and the rotation number, with the flow efficiency approaching 1.0 beyond a certain threshold, providing critical support for the cycle. Additionally, we established a distributed parameter model for the cycle and theoretically analyzed its operational performance. The results show that the COP of this cycle reaches 6.91 under air conditioning conditions. This is primarily because the local isentropic compression/expansion efficiency of CO2 in the rotating channel exceeds 99 %. Additionally, the temperature slip during the gas cooling process is only 1.2 °C, demonstrating the feasibility of achieving nearly isothermal compression through the rotating heat exchanger. Furthermore, the results showed that changes in boundary conditions resulted in minimal changes in system pressure differential, not exceeding 2 %. However, increases in CO2 charge and rotational speed led to substantial changes in system pressure differential, increasing by 39 % and 51 %, respectively. These trends reflect the effect of the centrifugal potential energy-pressure energy conversion on the operating characteristics of the system. In addition, there exists a maximum charge limit to prevent the cycle from entering the two-phase region. There is also an optimal combination of rotating heat exchanger and compressor speeds that ensures maximum COP while guaranteeing the cooling capacity. The main novelty of this paper lies in elucidating the coupling mechanism between operational parameters and the thermodynamic parameters of the supergravity CO2 refrigeration cycle.

Multi-aspect assessment and optimization of a poly-generation layout composed of a geothermal power plant and a wind turbine

The current research is an effort to propose a novel poly-generation layout by hybridization of wind power and geothermal energy as two renewable heat sources. The geothermal unit comprises a steam flash cycle as the topping system and a Kalina flash cycle as the bottoming system. Hot water is produced through the utilization of the energy of the geothermal water before reinjection to the ground. An E126/7580 wind turbine is accountable for generating the favorable output electricity. Moreover, the waste heat from the generator of the wind turbine is recovered in a trilateral flash cycle. The sum of power produced by the steam flash cycle and the trilateral flash cycle is employed to generate hydrogen in an electrolysis unit. Moreover, the output electricity of the Kalina flash cycle is employed to produce cooling and freshwater in a transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle and a reverse osmosis desalination system. The final evaluation of the system utilizing energy and exergy-economic analyses and three-objective optimization of the layout revealed an exergetic efficiency of 37.11 % in the optimum case. The configuration produces 771.7 kW, 454.3 kW, 3585 kW, 1.29 kgh-1, and 3 kgs-1 of electricity, cooling, heating, hydrogen, and freshwater, correspondingly. The economic analysis of the system indicates a total cost rate of 140.2 $h-1, a specific cost of products equal to 19.5 $GJ-1, and a payback period of 1.03 years, suggesting an excellent economic performance for such a complex system.

Thermodynamic modeling and performance optimization of transcritical CO2 dual-evaporator refrigeration system enhanced with ejectors

The utilization of ejectors in transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems is known to enhance system performance significantly. However, the operational conditions play a crucial role in determining the system’s overall efficiency. This study introduces a thermodynamic model for transcritical CO2 ejector refrigeration systems and investigates the influence of operating conditions on system performance for four different refrigeration systems, and the optimization of the Nakagawa sound velocity model coefficient in the ejector modeling is carried out to enhance the accuracy of the model. Meanwhile, these research contents are also the innovation of the research. Key conclusions include: (1) Increasing the Nakagawa coefficient to 1.1 improves model accuracy. (2) Ejector inclusion enhances system COP, with one configuration showing a 43.36 % increase and another a 53.23 % increase, recommending different system setups for large spaces like supermarkets and smaller areas like refrigerated vehicles. (3) Higher evaporating pressures result in better COP for ejector systems, with a suggested maximum air cooler pressure of 9 MPa. COP also benefits from increased ejector outlet pressures. (4) AR (area ratio) of the ejector affects mass flow rates and cooling capacity significantly, while its impact on COP is minimal. Adjusting the primary throat area can control cooling capacity for varied needs. The study provides actionable insights for improving the design and efficiency of transcritical CO2 ejector refrigeration systems.

Thermodynamic, environmental, and exergoeconomic analysis of multi-ejector expansion transcritical CO2 supermarket refrigeration cycles in different climate regions of Türkiye

Restrictions on high-GWP refrigerants have made the use of transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems widespread. Using transcritical booster refrigeration cycle in warm climates is unsatisfactory due to its high energy consumption. This paper presents theoretical analysis and performance comparison of three different transcritical CO2 supermarket refrigeration cycle configurations with ejector expansion in Türkiye, which has different climatic regions. Bin-hour data were derived using hourly dry-bulb temperature values for provinces from 7 different regions in Türkiye. The applicability of multi-ejectors to each modeled cycle was also investigated. Annual energy consumption and environmental impact reductions of up to 17% were obtained using ejector expansion cycle compared to booster cycle. Ejector expansion cycles achieved higher performance than booster cycle up to 46% in terms of exergy efficiency at investigated ambient temperatures. Unit product exergy costs of the ejector cycles were found up to 28% lower than booster cycle.

3E analysis and multi-objective optimization of a trans-critical ejector-assisted Co2 refrigeration cycle combined with thermo-electric generator

3E analysis and multi-objective optimization of a trans-critical ejector-assisted Co2 refrigeration cycle combined with thermo-electric generator

Marine temperature and humidity regulation combined system: performance analysis and multi-objective optimization

The efficient and environmentally friendly air conditioning system plays a vital role in cost reduction and efficiency improvement within the shipping industry. This study focuses on a specific ocean-going container ship equipped with the 8S90ME-C10.2 marine diesel engine as its main propulsion system. Firstly, the cooling load of 149.56 kW and a wet load of 18.04 g/s for the container ship were calculated to determine an energy-efficient and comfortable air conditioning scheme. Secondly, a novel combined system, integrating temperature and humidity solution dehumidification with enhanced transcritical CO2 refrigeration using injection subcooling, was proposed. The regenerator for solution dehumidification and the generator for injection refrigeration utilized the main cylinder liner cooling water as a heat source. Based on the system modeling, numerical simulation, and result validation, comprehensive analyses and quantitative evaluations were conducted to investigate the sensitivity of temperature and humidity regulation parameters, system performance, components exergy efficiency, and economics. Finally, employing a multi-objective optimization algorithm, the optimal operating conditions and corresponding objective functions for the system were obtained: exhaust pressure of 9.43 MPa, regeneration temperature of 91.08 °C, subcooling degree of 19.48 °C, coefficient of refrigeration performance of 3.697, exergy loss of 84.136 kW, and an annual operating cost of $111,300. This combined system exhibits high efficiency, environmental friendliness, and comfort, making it well-suited to handle the fluctuating heat and humidity loads during the ocean-going container ship through varying sea climates.

A new CO2 refrigeration system with two-phase ejector and parallel compression for supermarkets

This study explores the integration of parallel compression and a two-phase ejector in transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems, aiming to improve efficiency and performance. This innovative approach bridges the gap between conventional approaches and explores new energy-saving potential. The study uses thermodynamic modeling, mathematical simulation, and in-depth analysis to look at energy and exergy performance in a new configuration for applications in the retail sector at medium evaporation temperatures. The work investigates thermodynamic phenomena in a novel cycle with steady-state conditions, low pressure differentials, and adiabatic efficiency. The model is validated against experimental and theoretical published data, revealing component-specific exergy destruction and key parameters. The novel cycle efficiently extracts heat at higher temperatures, outperforming conventional and parallel cycles. Exergetic efficiency surpasses the standard cycle, with gas cooler pressure and temperature dependence enhancing efficiency by 40%–45%. The distribution of exergy destruction percentages reveals efficiency determinants, emphasizing heat exchange optimization and ejector responsiveness in energy dissipation dynamics. The study investigates the coefficient of performance (COP) dependence on gas cooler pressure and temperature, revealing superior performance compared to conventional cycles. COP increases by 50% at 80 bars, indicating enhanced efficiency. The new cycle offers exceptional efficiency gains, with a COP enhancement of over 75% for evaporator temperature transitions. Comparative analysis shows a COP superiority of up to 53% for lower evaporator temperatures and 20% for higher evaporator temperatures, demonstrating substantial energy savings and improved performance across various operating conditions.