Performance investigation of ice plant working with R134a and different concentrations of POE/TiO2 nanolubricant using experimental method

Abstract

This paper experimentally investigates the performance of an ice plant test rig for varied volume concentrations (0.1%, 0.2% and 0.3%) of TiO 2 nanoparticles dispersed in polyol ester (POE) lubricating oil using R134a as a working refrigerant. The performance of the test rig is investigated on the basis of parameters including brine temperature in the brine tank (pulldown time), pressure ratio, compressor power input, freezing capacity, COP, thermal conductivity, viscosity, and density at suction and discharge end of compressor. Analysis is based on temperature and pressure readings taken using suitable thermocouples and gauges fitted to the test rig. Refrigerant properties are acquired using REFPROP 9.1 software development by NIST. The concentration of 0.2% is found as the optimum since the lowest compressor power input and the highest COP are achieved at this concentration. The result indicates that the mixture of R134a/nanolubricant (POE/TiO 2) worked safely and efficiently in the rig, and the performance is found better than operated with mixture of R134a/lubricant (POE), with 15.8% less power consumption in the compressor and 29.1% increase in the COP at 0.2% volume concentration of TiO 2 nanoparticles. Moreover, thermal conductivity, viscosity, and density of the mixture of R134a/nanolubricant (POE/TiO 2) are found higher compared to mixture of R134a/lubricant (POE) and are increasing with increasing the TiO 2 concentration.

Investigation on the density of Al2O3/R1234yf, TiO2/R1234yf and CuO/R1234yf nano-refrigerants

“…They were identified that the density of cubic shaped ZnO nano-sized particle in the refrigerant was higher than that of spherical shaped particle. Alawi et al 24 studied the density of CuO/R134a refrigerant and found a reducing trend with the temperature slowly up to 288 K and then rapidly beyond that. Chauhan et al 25 analysed the density of TiO 2 /R134a nano-refrigerant and it can be used in the suction and discharge side of the compressor.…”