Análisis del HFO-1234ze como alternativa ecológica en la refrigeración doméstica

Food refrigeration is an essential process in homes, and thus a home refrigerator becomes an indispens-able appliance. Being this one of the biggest con-sumers of electrical energy and contamination due to the refrigerant used for its operation, it is important to look for alternatives that improve this process. This study aims to implement the HFO, R12354ze as an ecological alternative in domestic refrigeration, in response to environmental demands to reduce climate change and deterioration of the ozone layer. Through a thermodynamic and heat transfer analysis, simulat-ing the cooling cycle and the behavior of the fluid in heat exchange using specialized software and CFD, the HFO is presented as an acceptable alternative achieving cooling parameters which are between 5% and 8% different from common refrigerators currently used, with an environmental cost up to 99% lower, without altering their energy efficiency. Taking ad-vantage of the properties of the HFO, it is possible to improve the coefficient of performance of the cooling cycle by 12%.