Thermodynamic and energy efficiency analysis of a domestic refrigerator using Al2O3 nano-refrigerant
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2021
Abstract
Refrigeration systems have experienced massive technological changes in the past 50 years. Nanotechnology can lead to a promising technological leap in the refrigeration industry. Nano-refrigerant still remains unknown because of the complexity of the phase change process of the mixture including refrigerant, lubricant, and nanoparticle. In this study, the stability of Al2O3 nanofluid and the performance of a nano-refrigerant-based domestic refrigerator have been experimentally investigated, with the focus on the thermodynamic and energy approaches. It was found that by increasing the nanoparticle concentration, the stability of nano-lubricant was decreased and evaporator temperature gradient was increased. The average of the temperature gradient increment in the evaporator was 20.2% in case of using 0.1%-Al2O3. The results showed that the energy consumption of the refrigerator reduced around 2.69% when 0.1%-Al2O3 nanoparticle was added to the system.
Keywords
Nano-refrigerant, Nanofluid, Refrigerator, Energy efficiency, Thermodynamic analysis, Aluminum oxide
Divisions
mechanical
Funders
High Impact Research MoE from the Ministry of Education Malaysia (UM.C/625/1/HIR/MoE/ENG/40)
Publication Title
Sustainability
Volume
13
Issue
10
Publisher
MDPI
Publisher Location
ST ALBAN-ANLAGE 66, CH-4052 BASEL, SWITZERLAND