Scientific projects

Predictive Screening of Working Fluid Mixtures to Increase the Energy Efficiency of Refrigeration Systems and Heat Pumps (SCREAM)

Since April 15, 2020, the publicly funded project "Predictive Screening of Working Fluid Mixtures to Increase the Energy Efficiency of Refrigeration Systems and Heat Pumps", short “SCREAM”, has been carried out in cooperation of the Chair of Technical Thermodynamics (TT) and the Bitzer-Chair of Refrigeration, Cryogenics and Compressor Technology (KKKT). The European Union, the European Social Fund, and the Free State of Saxony fund the project. The aim of this project is to find and experimentally validate new climate-friendly and efficient working fluids and working fluid mixtures for refrigeration systems and heat pumps. In particular, thermodynamic process parameters will be determined using the example of a heat pump dishwasher and an air conditioning split system. For these processes, optimal working fluids and working fluid mixtures will be predicted by using highly accurate equations of state and predictive mixture models. Furthermore, improvements of the calculation methods as well as an extension of the substance database are planned. The screening of the working fluids is carried out situational in the corresponding refrigerant circuits. Thermophysical properties such as vapour pressure, surface tension, mixture gaps, viscosity, density, thermal conductivity and isochoric heat capacity of promising working fluid mixtures will be investigated in the thermophysical properties laboratory of the Bitzer-Chair in order to validate the results of the predictive models. The theoretically most suitable working fluids will be tested in an adapted heat pump dishwasher and the energy efficiency will be measured according to EN 50242.

For further questions, please contact Mrs. Katharina Stöckel (KKKT) and Mr. Erik Mickoleit (TT).