Experimental analysis of a new refrigerant mixture as drop-in replacement for CFC12 and HFC134a

An experimental performance study on a vapour compression refrigeration system with the new R290/R600a refrigerant mixture as drop-in replacement was conducted and compared with CFC12 and HFC134a. The vapour compression refrigeration system was initially designed to operate with R12. Experimental results showed that the refrigerant R290/R600a had 19.9% to 50.1% higher refrigerating capacity than R12 and 28.6% to 87.2% than R134a.The refrigerant R134a showed slightly lower refrigerating capacity than R12. The mixture R290/R600a consumed 6.8% to 17.4% more energy than R12. The refrigerant R12 consumed slightly more energy than R134a at higher evaporating temperatures. The coefficient performance of R290/R600a mixture increases from 3.9% to 25.1% than R12 at lower evaporating temperatures and 11.8% to 17.6% at higher evaporating temperatures. The refrigerant R134a showed slightly lower coefficient of performance than R12. The discharge temperature and discharge pressure of the R290/R600a mixture was very close to R12. The R290/R600a (68/32 by wt%) mixture can be considered as a drop-in replacement refrigerant for CFC12 and HFC134a.The refrigeration efficiency of the system were also studied.