Experimental Refrigeration Replacement
Channel: JMU ISAT
Date: 02/07/2017

Full Title: Experimental Refrigeration Replacement by Kyle Heesen
Advised by: Dr. Tony Chen
Abstract: Refrigerants are used in everyday appliances including air conditioners for a car or house and freezers used on the household and industrial levels. While refrigerants help improve quality of life they release compounds that could be detrimental to the environment and cause damage to the atmosphere. Since the creation of refrigerants back in the late 1800’s the compounds released from the refrigeration process directly impact the ozone and climate change. Many policies including the Montreal and Kyoto Protocol to help control the amount of these damaging compounds released into the atmosphere. Different refrigerants have different inefficiencies, economic performances, safety levels and global warming potentials. New refrigerants are being created at a very slow rate but advances need to be made. The objective of this study is to examine how different refrigerants react with the environment and how breakthroughs in cleaner refrigerants can help minimize the negative effects to the environment and atmosphere. An air conditioning lab unit was used to compare the system performance with refrigerants R-134a, R-22, and HFO-1234yf.