Performance of CFC-502 alternative refrigerant mixtures for low temperature and transport applications.

In this study, 2 pure hydrocarbon refrigerants of R1270 (propylene) and R290 (propane) and 3 binary mixtures composed of R1270, R290, R152a were tested in a refrigerating bench tester with a scroll compressor in an attempt to substitute R502 used in most of the low temperature and transport refrigeration applications. The test bench provided 3-3.5 kW capacity and water and water/glycol mixture were employed as the secondary heat transfer fluids. All tests were conducted under the same external conditions resulting in the average saturation temperatures of -28 and 45 °C in the evaporator and condenser respectively. Test results showed that all refrigerants tested had 9.6-18.7% higher capacity and 17.1-27.3% higher COP than R502. The compressor discharge temperature of R1270 was similar to that of R502 while those of all other refrigerants were 23.7-27.9 °C lower than that of R502. For all alternative refrigerants, the charge was reduced up to 60% as compared to R502.