Thermodynamic and Cost Assessment of Cascade Refrigeration System Using Different Refrigerants

In recent times, pollution and its impact on the environment is a major concern. In this paper, authors try to find environmentally sustainable substitutes for the current refrigerants by comparing it with various performance parameters, i.e., COP, exergetic efficiency, and plant annual cost numerically. A thermoeconomic model has been developed using the fundamental correlations to describe a cascade refrigeration system in EES software for the simulation of the system. The refrigerant pairs considered in this study are R41/R152a, R41/R290, R41/R161, and R41/R134a. The thermoeconomic performances namely, COP, exergetic efficiency, and plant cost rate are obtained by varying the evaporator temperature from −25 °C to −50 °C and the condenser temperature from 40 °C to 50 °C in this simulation and analyzed.