Chapter 14

Evaluation of HFO-1234YF
as a Replacement for R134A in Frigorific
Air Conditioning Systems

Mehmet Direk, Cuneyt Tunckal, Fikret Yuksel and Ozan Menlibar

Abstract The aim of this study was to compare and evaluate the frigorific air
conditioning system using HFO-1234yf and R-134a as a refrigerant. For this aim,
an experimental frigorific air conditioning system using both refrigerants was
developed and refrigerated air was introduced into a refrigerated room. The per-
formance parameters determined were the change of the air temperature in the
condenser inlet and time. The performance of frigorific air conditioning system has
been evaluated by applying energy analysis. Experiments were conducted for a
standard frigorific air conditioning system using the R134a as a refrigerant. Airflow
has been introduced to the refrigerated room for 60 min for each performance test.
From the result for both refrigerant, the temperature gradient in time was compa-
rable. The HFO-1234yf refrigerant can use the standard frigorific air conditioning
system that is currently being used by the R134a refrigerant, without any changes
needing to be made.

Nomenclature
COP Coefficient of performance
h Enthalpy (kJ kg−1)
m_ Mass flow rate (g s−1)
Q_ Cooling capacity (W)
W_ Power (W)

Subscripts
comp Compressor
cond Condenser
evap Evaporator
in Inlet

M. Direk (&)
C. Tunckal
F. Yuksel
O. Menlibar

Yalova University, Yalova, Turkey
e-mail: [email protected]
O. Menlibar
e-mail: [email protected]

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 151

A.N. Bilge et al. (eds.), Energy Systems and Management,
Springer Proceedings in Energy, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16024-5_14
152 M. Direk et al.

out Exit
r Refrigerant
ref Refrigerated room

14.1 Introduction

As stated by the montreal protocol, the use of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) and

hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants will be discontinued due to their
hazardous nature. Some EU countries have pushed the date back earlier and are
working on the design of a new air conditioning system using natural refrigerant.
Countries have begun to research more environmentally friendly refrigerants rather
than continue to use the harmful CFC and HFC refrigerants.
The European laws specify that beginning on January 1 of 2017, all automobiles
equipped with air conditioning systems cannot be manufactured using greenhouse
gases that have global warming potentials (GWP) greater than 150. HFO-1234yf
could be implemented in existing air conditioning systems using R134a. HFO-
1234yf is being considered as a possible replacement for R134a in automotive
applications (Meyer 2008).
Meyer (2008) revealed that the cooling capacity and coefficients of performance
(COP) of HFO-1234yf could be made relatively equal to the baseline R134a. Spatz
and Minor (2008) demonstrated that there remain a couple of issues that are being
investigated in order to replace R134a with HFO-1234yf in automotive applica-
tions. The effects of using improved components in air conditioning systems were
studied experimentally by Petijean and Benouali (2010). They found that the
condenser plays important role than the evaporator in the optimization of the HFO-
1234yf performance.
Under the conditions for mobile air conditioners, the performance of both HFO-
1234yf and R134a was investigated in a heat pump bench tester by Lee and Jung
(2012). The results demonstrated that, because of its good environmental properties
and reasonable performance, HFO-1234yf could potentially be seen as a long-term
environmentally friendly solution for using in mobile air conditioners. They also
revealed that energy efficiency devices are needed in all energy conversion area
including mobile air conditioning system because of the global energy price rise.
Since mobile air conditioning device is rising constantly, some ways such as the
optimization of the heat exchanger circuitries should be carefully devised for
R1234yf in the long run.
Navarro et al. (2013) compared HFO-1234yf, R134a and R290 for an open
piston compressor at different operating conditions. Akram et al. (2013) investi-
gation compared the lubricity of the two refrigerants, the environmentally friendly
HFO-1234yf and the traditional R134a, for air conditioning compressor applica-
tions. Lee et al.’s (2013) study proposed replacing R134a in applications such as
14 Evaluation of HFO-1234YF as a Replacement for R134A … 153

mobile air conditioners with a mixture of R134a and HFO-1234yf. They found that
in the HFO-1234yf/R134a mixture when more R134a was added, the properties of
flammability decrease, while compositions with R134a above 10 %, the mixture
became non-flammable.
In this study, to evaluate the comparative experimental performances, a frigorific
air conditioning system using HFO-1234yf and R134a was developed and refrig-
erated air was introduced into a refrigerated room. The effects of using R134a and
HFO-1234yf, as a refrigerant in a frigorific air conditioning system, and their
respective performances were determined comparatively.

14.2 Description of the Experimental Set-up

The experimental system is made from original components of a frigorific air con-
ditioning system, as schematically shown in Fig. 14.1. It employs a seven-cylinder
fixed-capacity swash-plate SANDEN SD 5750 W compressor at 2200 rpm, a
9500 W parallel-flow micro-channel condenser, a 5750 W laminated-type evapo-
rator and thermostatic expansion valves. An experimental system was connected to a
refrigerated room for the test. The room dimensions are 210 cm × 220 cm × 220 cm.
This refrigerated room was insulated by 8-cm-thin isolation panels.
All lines in the refrigeration circuit of the system were made from copper tubing
and insulated by elastomeric material. The condenser was inserted into separate air
ducts of 1.2 m length. In order to provide the required airstreams in the air ducts, an
axial fan was placed at the condenser ducts. These ducts also contained electric
heaters located upstream of the condenser. The condenser electric heaters could be

Fig. 14.1 Schematic illustration of the experimental set-up

154 M. Direk et al.

Table 14.1 Characteristics of the instrumentation

Measured variable Instrument Range Uncertainty
Temperature K-type thermocouple −50 with 200 °C ±%0.3
Airflow rate Anemometer 0.1–15 m s−1 ±%3
Refrigerant mass flow Turbine flowmeter 0–350 kg h−1 ±%0.1
rate
Refrigerant pressure Digital manifold 50 bar 0.5 % fs (±1 Digit)

controlled between 0 and 2 kW. To provide the required air temperature at the inlets
of the condenser, the refrigeration circuit was charged with 1500 g R134a and
HFO-1234yf. In order to gather data for the performance evaluation of the exper-
imental frigorific system, some mechanical measurements were conducted on the
system. The instruments and their locations are depicted in Fig. 14.1. The features
of the instrumentation can be seen in Table 14.1.
The temperatures of the refrigerant and air at the inlet and exit of each com-
ponent were measured by K-type thermocouples. The refrigerant pressures at the
inlet and exit of the compressor were monitored by digital manifold. The values of
most of the measured variables were acquired through a data acquisition system and
recorded on a computer. The airstream discharged from the evaporator duct was
supplied to the refrigerated room for cooldown tests. In order to measure the
compartment temperatures, a thermocouple was located at the exit of the evapo-
rator, while another one was suspended in the air close to the left wall, and the last
one was suspended in the air close to the right wall.
The refrigerant flow path in the experimental system is illustrated in Fig. 14.1.
The refrigerant passing through the condenser rejects heat to the ambient airstream.
Then, the refrigerant condenses and leaves the condenser as sub-cooled liquid.
After that, the refrigerant flow reaches the receiver tank, which keeps the unrequired
refrigerant when the thermostatic expansion valve decreases the refrigerant flow
rate at low-cooling loads reaches TXV located at the inlet of the evaporator. It
enters the evaporator, where it rejects cool air taken from the refrigerated room, and
leaves the evaporator as low-pressure superheated vapour. After, the refrigerant is
directed to the compressor, which receives the low-pressure refrigerant vapour and
compresses it to a high pressure. The performance of HFO-1234yf was tested in a
standard R134a frigorific air conditioning without alterations being made.

14.3 Thermodynamic Analysis

The performance of the frigorific air conditioning system can be evaluated by using
the first law of thermodynamics. The evaporator, the cooling capacity of the
experimental frigorific air conditioning system, can be evaluated from
14 Evaluation of HFO-1234YF as a Replacement for R134A … 155

Q_ evap ¼ m_ r ðhevap;in  hevap;out Þ ð14:1Þ

Assuming that the compressor is adiabatic, the power absorbed by the refrigerant
during the compression process can be expressed as follows:

_ comp ¼ m_ r ðhcomp;out  hcomp;in Þ

W ð14:2Þ

The most common approach in determining a system’s performance is to use

COP. The ratios of the cooling capacities to the compressor power give the ener-
getic performances of the system in the frigorific air conditioning. The COP of the
frigorific air conditioning system defined as the ratio between cooling capacity and
compressor power, i.e., can be determined.

Q_ evap
COP ¼ ð14:3Þ
W_ comp

14.4 Results and Discussion

The effect of the air temperature at the condenser inlet on certain of the steady-state
performance parameters of the frigorific air conditioning system using HFO-1234yf
and R-134a as a refrigerant is shown in Figs. 14.2 and 14.3. As is shown in
Fig. 14.2, the steady-state cooling capacity usually increases on decreasing the
temperatures of the airstreams entering the condenser. Higher cooling capacity has
been provided with HFO-1234yf compared to the air conditioning systems using
R134a. Figure 14.3 indicates that COP drops with air temperature entering into the
condenser. This is due to the increasing cooling capacity and decreasing com-
pressor power with decreasing Tcond,in. Consequently, COP for both refrigerants is
closely comparable.

Fig. 14.2 The variation of 5500

the cooling capacity as a HFO1234yf
function of air temperature at R134a
Cooling capacity (W)

the condenser inlet

4500

3500

2500
25 30 35
Air temperature at the condenser inlet (°C)
156 M. Direk et al.

Fig. 14.3 The variation of 5

the COP as a function of air HFO1234yf
temperature at the condenser R134a
inlet 4

COP
3

1
25 30 35
Air temperature at the condenser inlet (°C)

Fig. 14.4 The variation of

the air temperature at the Tin uni=25°C
evaporator outlet as a function 20 R134a
of time 1500 g HFO1234yf
at evaporator ourlet (°C)
air temperature

10

-10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
time (d)

Figure 14.4 indicates a slight alteration in the air temperatures in the first 30 min,
the HFO-1234yf refrigerant dropping slightly lower during this period. This change
is only temporary, and the graph reveals how these two temperatures reunite fol-
lowing the initial 30 min and maintain the same decline thereafter. The graph
reveals promising results.

14.5 Conclusions

The steady-state results demonstrated that the frigorific air conditioning system
cooling capacity usually gets higher on decreasing the temperatures of the air-
streams travelling through the condenser. The frigorific air conditioning system
using R134a provided a higher cooling capacity when compared with the air
14 Evaluation of HFO-1234YF as a Replacement for R134A … 157

conditioning systems using HFO-1234yf as a refrigerant. Furthermore, the results

determined that the COP for both refrigerants was closely comparable. While
additionally, for both refrigerants, the temperature gradient in time was also
comparable.
On the other hand, the transient and steady-state performance of an experimental
frigorific air conditioning system for the cases of using HFO-1234yf and R134a as a
refrigerant as a heat source have been evaluated and compared with each other.
Airflow has been introduced to the conditioning room for 60 min for each per-
formance tests. The transient test revealed that the evaporator exit air temperature in
the refrigerated room drops with time.
The results of these tests and analysis have shown that the HFO-1234yf
refrigerant can use the standard frigorific air conditioning system that is currently
being used by the R134a refrigerant, without any changes need to be made. As a
result, HFO-1234yf could be viewed as a potential alternative for the frigorific air
conditioning system.

Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the University of Yalova for supporting this
study through a Research Project No: 2013/BAP/063.

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