Reducing Energy Consumption of Refrigerator Compressor using Aluminum Oxide Nanoparticles

Abstract

Refrigeration has become an integral part of our daily lives and can be regarded as a process whose replacement is nearly impossible. Therefore, the only way of making this process efficient is by reducing the energy consumed by the components of refrigerators. One way of doing this is to reduce the power consumption of compressor by the addition of nanoparticles either in a refrigerant or in a lubricant. This study focusses on producing nanolubricant (Al2O3/Synthetic lubricant) and dispersing the nanolubricant into R-134a compressor. This study investigates that how much power can be reduced when Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) nanoparticles dispersed in SL-32 lubricant (base fluid). A comparison between SL-32 lubricant with and without the addition of Aluminum oxide nanoparticles was done and it showed a reduction of 0.913% in current consumption and 2.74% in power at the same initial temperature of 31°C in both cases. Hence it can be concluded that Alumina nanoparticles can be utilized to reduce the energy utilized by compressors by creating a nanolubricant with SL-32 lubricant.

Keywords

• Refrigeration
• Nanoparticles
• Lubricant
• Compressor
• Energy