Analysis of environmentally friendly refrigerant options for window air conditioners

This article presents a technical assessment of environmentally friendly refrigerants as alternatives to R410A for window air conditioners. The alternative refrigerants that are studied for its replacement include R32, a mixture of R32/R125 with 90%/10% molar concentration, R600a, R290, R1234yf, R1234ze, and R134a. Baseline experiments were performed on a window unit charged with R410A. The heat pump design model was modified and calibrated with the baseline data and was used to evaluate the comparative performance of the window air conditioner with alternative refrigerants. The article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each refrigerant and their suitability for window air conditioners. Among all of the refrigerants studied, R32 offers the best efficiency improvement over R410A and has a 67.5% lower global warming potential.