Progress in ground-source heat pumps using natural refrigerants

•Progress in ground-source heat pumps using natural refrigerants was summarized.•Performance of CO2/NH3/water/hydrocarbons in ground-source heat pumps was compared.•Pros and cons of each natural refrigerant in ground-source heat pump were discussed.•Advances and improvements for applications of natu...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of refrigeration 2018-08, Vol.92, p.70-85
Main Authors: Wu, Wei, Skye, Harrison M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ammonia
Ammoniac
Carbon dioxide
Dioxyde de carbone
Eau
Frigorigène naturel
Ground-source heat pump
Hydrocarbon
Hydrocarbures
Natural refrigerant
Pompe à chaleur géothermique
Water
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Progress in ground-source heat pumps using natural refrigerants was summarized.•Performance of CO2/NH3/water/hydrocarbons in ground-source heat pumps was compared.•Pros and cons of each natural refrigerant in ground-source heat pump were discussed.•Advances and improvements for applications of natural refrigerants were discussed.•Suggestions and perspectives were provided for future efforts on natural refrigerants. Natural refrigerants are attractive candidates for replacing the high Global-Warming-Potential fluorinated refrigerants used in ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs). This paper presents a comprehensive survey on GSHPs using CO2, NH3, water, and hydrocarbons. We compared the refrigerants’ thermodynamic properties, analyzed their performance in brine-to-air and brine-to-water GSHPs, and discussed recent progress in their use in GSHPs. Studies of CO2 were the most common due to its favorable properties, covering advanced cycles, direct-expansion, secondary fluid, and hybrid GSHPs. Though with toxicity concerns, NH3 was the second most studied, including vapor-compression GSHPs for heating, absorption-type GSHPs to eliminate ground imbalance, and hybrid compression-absorption GSHPs to widen the operating temperature range. A few studies evaluated water as a refrigerant for absorption-type GSHPs, including applications for solar cooling, ground imbalance, and district heating. Propane was the only hydrocarbon considered for GSHPs, including analyses on refrigerant charge, performance analysis, and propane as a secondary fluid.
ISSN:0140-7007
1879-2081
DOI:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2018.05.028