Testing of Environment Friendly Refrigerant R290 for Water Cooler Application (RESEARCH NOTE)

This paper presents environment friendly refrigerant R290 as a solution to the environmental concerns like depletion of ozone layer and rise in global warming because of wide use of synthetic refrigerants R22 and R134a. The water cooler is the widely used refrigeration application in warm climatic countries. Refrigerant R22 and R134a are predominantly used refrigerants in water cooler refrigeration systems. These refrigerants are to be phased out as per the international agreements, Kyoto and Montreal protocol. This experimental study investigates the applicability of the environment friendly refrigerant R290 for applications, especially in warm climate sub-tropical and tropical countries like India. A water cooler test facility of a nominal cooling capacity 1.5 kW is especially designed, developed for R290 and its performance is investigated at different operating conditions. Performance parameters like cooling capacity, discharge gas temperature and coefficient of performance are analyzed. Results showed that compressor energy consumption and discharge gas temperatures are lower for the water cooler refrigeration system. The overall performance of the especially developed system for water cooler application proved that R290 can be a better alternative refrigerant with respect to energy efficiency and greenhouse impact as a replacement to R22 and R134a.