Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) of Novel Air Conditioning System on LPG Fuelled Vehicle: A Lab-Scale Investigation

Abstract

Alternative fuels have become an effective solution to reduce the impact of road transport on the environment. On the other hand, the growing uses of air-conditioning (AC) have contributed to worsening the fuel economy of passenger vehicles. Liquid petroleum gas (LPG), if injected in the gaseous phase to power SI engines, may allow reducing the fuel consumption due to AC devices through the recovery of cooling energy from the fuel systems. This paper presents lab-scale tests of an air conditioning system prototype for LPG-fuelled vehicles. The prototype has been assembled using standard vehicle components to quantify the cooling energy recoverable from the LPG evaporation before the fuel is injected into the engine intake manifold. Temperature and humidity of the air exiting the LPG evaporator are measured for fuel mass flow rates typical of light-duty vehicles. The energy efficiency ratio (EER) of the prototype achieves 2.72 when cooling power equals 1.2 kW. Although the system tested needs improvements, the experimental data show that the cooling energy recovered by LPG evaporation can significantly reduce the power consumption of standard AC systems in passenger cars.

Effect of TiO2/MO Nano-lubricant on Energy and Exergy Savings of an Air Conditioner using Blends of R22/R600a

“…They reported that R600a with nanolubricant worked safely and energy consumption for 0.5g/L TiO2 -R600a refrigerant was lessened by 9.6% compared to pure R600a. A detailed review to determine the possibility of using nano refrigerant and nano lubricant in a vapour compression system was reported in [38][39][40] Also, a few articles addressed the exergetic performance evaluation of AC which is an important attribute for an energy-efficient system design. Considering this purpose, in this work, the energetic and exergetic performance of a split type air conditioner containing TiO2 nanoparticles/mineral oil lubricant mixture and blend of R22/R600a (60:40 by mass charged as refrigerant) was examined to extend the current frontier of knowledge and to minimise the research gap.…”