The energy efficiency of refrigerants: An assessment based on thermophysical properties

• Energy effectiveness of refrigerants.
• Ranking by a cycle factor which is a function of basic refrigerant properties.
• Factors derived from heat transfer coefficients and a study of phase change.
• Blend viscosity adjusted for the associative effects of blend components.
• Factor order compared with ASHRAE cop order.

A method is presented which ranks single fluid refrigerants in order of thermodynamic effectiveness. Blends can be included in the ranking if their viscosity is adjusted to account for blend constituent interactions. This is achieved by the empirical use of molecular acentricity and dipole moment values for the constituent fluids. Only public domain property data are needed.