Subcooling methods for CO2 refrigeration cycles: A review

CO2 subcooling has resulted a method to upgrade the performance of CO2 refrigeration plants in the recent years, with overall improvements up to 12% with internal heat exchangers, 22% with economizers, 25.6% with thermoelectric systems and 30.3% with dedicated subcooling methods. This paper comprehensively reviews the recent studies that consider subcooling as a way to upgrade the performance of CO2 refrigeration cycles. The review is limited to CO2 refrigeration cycles with accumulation receiver for commercial purposes and does not consider air conditioning or MAC systems. It is organized as follows: first, the thermodynamic aspects of subcooling in CO2 refrigeration cycles are described and discussed; second, the main results and conclusions of the recent investigations are analysed inside two big groups: subcooling internal methods and subcooling external methods. Finally, the review synthesizes the current state of the art and points out the lines of research that deserve future developments.