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Brian Fricke, Ph.D., Oak Ridge National Laboratory |
A lower global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant blend, R448A, composed of hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) and hydrofluoro-olefin (HFO) refrigerants, has been proposed as an alternative to R404A. An evaluation of these two refrigerants in a laboratory-scale commercial refrigeration system is presented in this session. The system COP when operating with R448A was found to be up to 7% higher than that of R404A, while compressor power decreased by up to 6% when operating with R448A versus R404A. Given that R448A exhibits lower GWP than R404A, with similar operating characteristics and no energy penalty, R448A is a suitable lower GWP replacement for R404A.