Exergetic sustainability evaluation of irreversible Carnot refrigerator

•An irreversible refrigeration is considered.•Exergetic sustainability index is derived for refrigeration cycles.•Calculations are conducted for endoreversible and irreversible cycles.•Numerical results are presented and discussed.

Purpose of this paper is to assess irreversible refrigeration cycle by using exergetic sustainability index. In literature, there is no application of exergetic sustainability index for the refrigerators and, indeed, this index has not been derived for refrigerators. In this study, exergetic sustainability indicator is presented for the refrigeration cycle and its relationships with other thermodynamics parameters including COP, exergy efficiency, cooling load, exergy destruction, ecological function and work input are investigated. Calculations are conducted for endoreversible and reversible cycles and then results obtained from the ecological function are compared. It is found that exergy efficiency, exergetic sustainable index reduce 47.595% and 59.689% and rising at the COP is 99.888% is obtained for endoreversible cycle. Similarly, exergy efficiency and exergetic sustainability index reduce 90.163% and 93.711% and rising of the COP is equal to 99.362%.