- Author
- Rothfleisch, P. I. | Didion, D. A.
- Title
- Study of Heat Pump Performance Using Mixtures of R32/R134a and R32/R125/R134a as "Drop-In" Working Fluids for R22 With and Without a Liquid-Suction Heat Exchanger.
- Coporate
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD
- Sponsor
- Department of Energy, Washington, DC Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC
- Report
- NISTIR 5321, December 1993, 62 p.
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Keywords
- heat pumps | refrigerants | heat exchanger | cooling | drop-in test | liquid suction
- Abstract
- A ductless mini-split residential heat pump with a modified indoor coil was utilized to compare the performance of R22 and a mixture of 34% R32/66% R134a by weight. This test was intended to serve as an indicator of "drop-in" performance so the system was optimized for each refrigerant by varying only the charge mass and expansion valve setting. At the 27.8 deg C (82 deg F) cooling test condition the capacity and COP of the mixture were 94% and 90% of the values for R22, respectively. Additional tests were conducted with a liquid-suction intracycle heat exchanger. The modified system was operated with both single-phase and two-phase refrigerant entering the low pressure side of the liquid-suction heat exchanger. The addition of the liquid-suction heat exchanger showed a minimal performance improvement with the performance of the two-phase variation being slightly higher. The best performing liquid-suction heat exchanger variant (two-phase refrigerant on the low pressure side) was also run with a ternary mixture of 30% R32/10% R125/60% R134a, by wieight. The results for this mixture were similar to the binary mixture. To examine how well the drop-in test results reflect the fluids performance potential an ideal cycle computer model was used in conjunction with test data to calculate the total UA per unit capacity for each fluid. These results showed that the combination of this system and test procedure penalized the mixture performance by causing it to have a total UA per unit capacity 18.9% lower than R22. Therefore, these drop-in results are not a true indication of the performance potential of this mixture. The ideal cycle model was also used to show that a pure counterflow air-to-refrigerant evaporator would be beneficial to the performance of a cooling only unit regardless of the heat exchange configuration of the condenser.