A Review and Comparison of Technical and Economic Aspects of the Current and Alternative Refrigeration Systems
Sultan Khalid Mentor: Shahin Shafiee Department of Mechanical Engineering Introduction: We initially reviewed the efforts that are being directed to identify, analyze, and assess technologies, which could serve as alternatives to vapor-compression for refrigeration and could save up to 35% of the total residential energy consumption in the U.S. per year. Next, we identified and described several alternative refrigeration systems such as thermoelectric refrigeration, thermoacoustic refrigeration, magnetic refrigeration, pulse tube refrigeration, absorption cooling, and solid sorption refrigeration, based on the concept behind their technology, their thermodynamic properties, and their state-of-the-art status. A technical assessment of these alternative technologies was conducted and involve the evaluation of two fundamental criteria - environmental acceptability and economic analysis. Environmental acceptability considerations encompasses ozone depletion potential, global warming potential, toxicity of the working material, flammability, and noise. Economic analysis includes the cost-related technology assessment considering the state of the art, size and weight, system complexity, useful life, maintenance, and efficiency. Furthermore, we plan to provide a comparison of different types of alternative refrigeration technologies in terms of their cycle efficiency, coefficient of performance (COP), environmental friendliness, advantages and disadvantages on their potential domestic and commercial use. The work will conclude with the most promising alternative refrigeration technology to vapor compression systems. Hypothesis: Switching to alternative refrigeration technologies can not only help fight global warming but also could save up to 2.8 Quads per year of the U.S. energy Materials and Methods: After identifying alternatives to vapor-compression technology in residential and commercial HVAC applications, we characterized these technologies based on their technical energy savings potential, development status, non-energy benefits, and other factors affecting end-user acceptance and their ability to compete with conventional vapor-compression systems. In order to identify the most promising areas for potential further RD&D, a scorecard analysis was performed to evaluate each technology option based on the following criteria: technical energy savings potential, non-energy benefits, and cost/complexity. Each criterion was assigned a weighting factor to reflect its overall importance and ranked the list of technology options by their final scores. Figure 1 presents their overall final scores. These scores reflect the current understanding of the technology options based on available information and judgment.
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