The use of barocaloric effect for energy saving in a domestic refrigerator with ethylene-glycol based nanofluids: A numerical analysis and a comparison with a vapor compression cooler

C. Aprea, A. Greco, A. Maiorino and C. Masselli

Energy, 2020, vol. 190, issue C

Abstract: This paper focuses on barocaloric refrigeration that could represent a practicable environmentally friendly alternative to vapor compression. The energy performances of an active barocaloric refrigerator working as a domestic cooler are evaluated by means of a 2-Dimensional model, already validated in previous investigations. The energy performances are also compared with experimental data referred to a household vapor compression refrigerator working with HFC134a. The active barocaloric regenerative refrigeration cycle is supposed to work as a domestic refrigerator in temperature range of 255 ÷ 290 K. The heat-transfer fluid is a mixture of 50%ethylene-glycol-50%water, whereas acetoxy silicone rubber is the solid-state refrigerant. In order to enhance the energy performances of the solid-state refrigerator the use of Cu-based nanofluids in the anti-freezing mixture was tested. The addition of Cu-nanoparticles to the 50%ethylene-glycol- 50%water mixture ensures a moderate enhancement of the energy performances (the maximum temperature span, cooling power and coefficient of performance enhancements are +4.0%, +7.3% and +6.7%, respectively). The analysis shows that barocaloric refrigeration can be a promising new technology in the field of domestic refrigeration for energy saving because it always overperforms vapor compression.

Keywords: Barocaloric; Nanofluids; Caloric cooling; Ethylene-glycol; Active barocaloric regenerator; Vapor compression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544219320997
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:190:y:2020:i:c:s0360544219320997

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2019.116404

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().