Experimental investigation of the effect of using different refrigerant gases on refrigerator performance

An experimental study of the performance of a refrigerator using two refrigerants R-134a and R-410A has been conducted. The R-134a was the original design refrigerant, while the R-410A was the drop-in refrigerant. The study was performed on a small refrigerator charged with each refrigerant alone at nearly the same ambient conditions. Temperatures at various locations in the refrigeration system were measured using thermocouples during the running of the experiments, and the data collected were processed into performance refrigeration parameters. The results have indicated that both the refrigeration capacity and coefficient of performance were remarkably higher for the refrigerant R-410a by about 23 and 24%, respectively.