Experimental performance study of R290 as an alternative to R22 refrigerant in a window air conditioner

R22 is a hydrochloroflurocarbon (HCFC) refrigerant widely used in air conditioning. R22 is an ozone depleting substance. Due to ozone layer depletion, HCFC will be phased out in near future. R290 is hydrocarbon (HC) refrigerant is an alternative to R22. This paper presents outcomes of this comparative study. A 1 ton capacity window air conditioner was used to experiment. R22 was used for baseline refrigerant. R290 refrigerant using air cooled condenser coefficient of performance (C.O.P.) lowered by 6.91%, 6.28% & 1.38% at different set point temperatures 16°C, 20°C& 25°C. The system is optimized to increase in thermodynamic performance by using evaporative cooling condenser with R290 refrigerant. C.O.P. of system is improved by 15.84%, 18.23% & 22.92% at different set point temperature and power consumption reduces by almost 50% than the baseline system. The amount of refrigerant charge of R290 refrigerant is 70% less than that of R22 refrigerant. Experimental results show that implementation of the evaporative cooled air condenser by using R290 refrigerant has a significant effect on performance improvement of window air conditioner.