Comparative Study

on
Performance Analysis
Of
Vapour Absorption
Refrigeration System
Using
various Refrigerants
1.INTRODUCTION
Refrigeration has become an essential part of the way we live our life. Almost everyone has
a household refrigerator, but not many know of the process required to produce the drop in
temperature that we know as refrigeration. Nature works much like a heat engine, heat flows
from high-temperature elements to low-temperature elements. As it does this, work is also
done to its environment. Refrigeration is a process to keep a cool element or to reduce the
temperature of one element below that of the other. The refrigeration process is, in essence
then, a reverse heat engine, where heat is taken from a cold element to be transferred to a
warmer element, generally by adding work to the system. In a heat engine, work was done by
the system; so in order to do the reverse; work must be done to the system. This work input is
traditionally mechanical work, but it can also be driven by magnetism, lasers, acoustics, and
other means. Several different types of refrigeration systems which utilize different work
input were considered for this work. They are: the vapour-compression system, and the
absorption refrigeration system. In recent developments of thermal engineering, the
Refrigeration technologies play an important role in today's industrial applications. But as far
as COP of this refrigeration system is concerned; it is always a challenge to the researchers to
significantly increase the COP for these systems. The most popular refrigeration and air
conditioning systems at present are those based on the vapour absorption systems. These
systems are popular because they are reliable, relatively inexpensive and their technology is
well established. However, these systems require high-grade energy (mechanical or
electrical) for their operation. Apart from this, the recent discovery that the conventional
working fluids of vapour absorption systems are causing the ozone layer depletion and
greenhouse effects has forced the scientific researchers to look for alternative systems for
cooling applications. The natural alternative is of course the absorption system, which mainly
uses heat energy for its operation. Moreover, the working fluids of these systems are
environment-friendly. A suitable working fluid is probably the single most important factor
in any refrigeration system. The cycle efficiency and operation characteristics of an
absorption refrigeration system depend on the properties of refrigerant, absorbent and their
mixtures. The most important thermo-physical properties are: heat of vaporization of
refrigerant, heat of solution, vapour pressure of refrigerant and absorbent, solubility of
refrigerant in solvent, heat capacity of solution, viscosity of solution and surface tension and
thermal conductivity of the solution. Apart from this, the other selection criteria for the
working fluids are their toxicity, chemical stability and corrosively. The ultimate objective of
the strategy paper is the security of energy supply, encompassing environmental principles.
The priority of the energy supply field lies in the reduction of the global atmosphere warming
with emphasis on efficient energy use and on renewable energy sources (RES) . Simultaneous
heating and cooling are required in many industries such as dairy plant pharmaceuticals
chemical etc. Comparative Study on Performance Analysis of Vapour Absorption
Refrigeration System Using various Refrigerants Subhash Kumar1, Dr.R.R. Arakerimath2 1
ME Student, GHRCEM, Wagholi, Pune, Maharashtra, India 2 Professor and HOD (Mech),
GHRCEM, Wagholi, Pune, Maharashtra, India IPASJ International Journal of Mechanical
Engineering (IIJME) . Furthermore, thanks to the progressive reduction of both installation
and maintenance cost and energy consumption, their employment may become more and
more diffuse. Most of industrial process uses lots of thermal energy by burning fossil fuel to
produce steam or heat for the purpose. After the process, heat is rejected to the surrounding as
a waste. This exhaust waste heat can be used as refrigeration by using a heat based
refrigeration system, like vapour absorption refrigeration cycle [10]. Despite a lower
coefficient of performance (COP) as compared to the vapour compression cycle, absorption
refrigeration systems are promising for using inexpensive waste energy from industrial
processes, geothermal energy, solar energy etc. Thermodynamic properties of presented
working fluids can be obtained from publications. Evaluation of potential working fluid for
the absorption cycle is a problem because of a lack of published thermodynamic data. The
ideal absorbent-refrigerant pair does not exist, all possible combinations present advantages
and disadvantages. Many working fluids are suggested in literature but for the refrigeration
temperatures below 0°C the most common working fluid is NH3-H2O. NH3-H2O system
exhibits a generally low COP; that’s why efforts are being made to search for best
refrigerant-absorbent pairs that can improve system performance. Libr-H2O refrigerant-
absorbent mixture can be used as second VARS system.

2.Objectives of the Study

The Objectives of the study on the subject “Comparative study on Performance Analysis of
Vapour Absorption Refrigeration System by Using Two Refrigerants” is as follows
1. Identify the Refrigeration system with respect to VCRS.
2. Compare the key characteristics of traditional VCRS and VARS
3. Differentiate between NH3-H2O and Libr-H2O VARS.
4. Finding the best result in the form of COP for the both the system.
3. REFRIGERANT-ABSORBENT COMBINATIONS FOR VAPOUR
ABSORPTION REFRIGERATION SYSTEM (VARS)
VARS are commercially available today basically in two configurations. For applications
above 50ºC (primarily airconditioning) the cycle uses LiBr/H2O. For applications below
50ºC, ammonia/water cycle, is employed withNH3 as the refrigerant and H2O as the
absorbent.
3.1 Desirable Properties of Refrigerant Absorbent Mixtures:
Refrigerant-absorbent mixtures for VARS should possess some desirable properties of the
refrigerant should be more volatile than the absorbent, in other words the boiling point of
refrigerant should be much lower than the absorbent.), so that the solution in the Generator
need only to be heated to the temperature required boiling off only the refrigerant. This
ensures that only refrigerant (pure) circulates through refrigerant circuit (evaporator-
condenser-expansion valve). The refrigerant should exhibit high solubility with solution in
the absorber. The absorbent should have a strong affinity for the refrigerant. This will
minimize the amount of refrigerant to be circulated. Operating pressures should be preferably
low so that the walls of the shells and connecting pipes need not to be thick. It should not
undergo crystallization or solidification of the system. Because crystallization will block the
free flow of solution in the line. The mixture should be safe, chemically stable, noncorrosive,
and inexpensive and should be available easily. The refrigerant should have high heat of
vaporization
3.2 Refrigerant-Absorbent Pairs
The two most common used absorbent-refrigerant pairs in commercial systems are

3.3 Water-Lithium Bromide (H2O-LiBr) System-

for moderate temperatures (50ºC and above) applications specifically air conditioning. Here H2O is
the refrigerant and LiBr is the absorbent.

3.4 Ammonia-Water (NH3-H2O) System-

for low temperature (less than 50 C) refrigeration applications with NH3 as refrigerant and H2O as
absorbent. The Lithium Bromide-Water pair satisfies majority of the above-listed properties. For
these reasons Li-Br and Water systems are becoming more popular. Comparison of Lithium Bromide-
Water systems and Ammonia-Water Systems

3.5 Ammonia-Water Systems

Since the invention of absorption refrigeration system, NH3- H2O has been widely used. Both
ammonia (refrigerant) and water(absorbent) are highly stable for a wide range of operating
temperature and pressure.NH3 has a high latent heat of vaporization and the freezing point is -77°C,
which is necessary for efficient performance of the system, for that it may be used for low-
temperature applications. But both ammonia and water are volatile, the cycle needs a rectifier to
strip away water that normally evaporates with ammonia. Without a rectifier, the water would
accumulate in the evaporator and offset the system performance. Other disadvantages of its high
pressure, toxicity, and corrosive action of copper and its alloy. Ammonia/Air mixtures are barely
inflammable but may be explosive in the case of high percentages of ammonia between 15.5 and 27
% by volume.

3.6Lithium Bromide-Water Systems

The use of LiBr-Water for VARS began around 1930. Two outstanding features of LiBr-
Water are non-volatility absorbent of LiBr (no need of a rectifier) and extremely high heat of
vaporization of refrigerant (water). However, using H2O as a refrigerant limits the low-
temperature application to that above0°C. As H2O is the refrigerant, the system IPASJ
International Journal of Mechanical Engineering (IIJME). At high concentrations, the
solution is prone to crystallization. One way, to prevent this to happen to add one or more
extra salts e.g., ZnBr2, ZnCl2.The addition of the third component of the basic water-lithium
bromide solution pushes the crystallization limit away from the normal operating zone.
Hence the strong solution can be cooled in the heat exchanger to near absorber temperature
without salt crystallization, thus improving the performance of the system. COP is high (0.7
to 0.9) as compared to (0.5 to 0.6) for Ammonia-Water systems
4. COOLING CAPACITY FOR CHARGE AIR COOLING
The amount of cooling capacity required for charge air cooling is very much dependent on
the temperature reduction of the charge air due to cooling incorporated in the system.
Therefore, the energy transfer from the charge air is:

The heat from the generator and evaporator which can be transferred to the water and the heat
gain by water can be estimated from the following

Qg= mCv ∆T
Where Qg is the generator heat (kW), is Water mass flow rate and Cp: specific heat at
constant pressure. To find the coefficient performance of the absorption cycle

From the second law of thermodynamics,

∆Stotal=∆Ssystem+∆Ssurrounding>_0
Where ΔS total is the total change of entropy which is equal to the sum of change of entropy
of the system, ΔSsys and entropy change of the surroundings ΔS surr . Since the refrigeration
system works in a closed cycle, the change of entropy of the working fluid of the system
undergoing the cycle is zero, i.e., ΔSsys=0. The change in entropy of the surroundings is
given by:
Substituting first law of thermodynamics expression in the above equation

Neglecting solution pump work, Wp; the COP of VARS is given by:

5.COMPARATIVE GRAPHS OF NH3-H20 AND LIBR-H2O VARS

6. CONCLUSION
The performance of NH3-H2O, LiBr-H2O as working fluids for refrigeration temperature
below atmospheric were presented in this paper. The preferable working fluid can be
considered as a solution with the highest COP, lower required generator temperature and
circulation ratio as low as possible. It is evident that COP strongly depends on working
conditions such as generator, absorber, condenser and evaporating temperature. We observed,
the range of C.O.P for the aqueous ammonia system is (0.1o - 0.8) when the generator
temperature is up to 65°C and the range of LiBr-H2O system are (0.1-0.7) when the generator
temperature is up to 95 °C .The range of minimum evaporator temperature is (10°C - 15°C).
The range of NH3 and LIBR is (15% maximum).

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