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Energetic, environmental and economic assessment of multi-evaporator CO2–NH3 cascade refrigeration system for seafood application

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Abstract

Refrigeration plays a vital role in ensuring quality and safety of seafood. In a tropical country like India, the seafood industry has a relatively larger cooling load throughout the supply chain due to higher temperature differences between ambient and chilled seafood. The cooling demands in a seafood processing plant are typically at four different temperature levels. Supply of chilled water at 2 °C, ice at − 5 °C, cold storage maintained at − 25 °C, and a plate or blast freezer at − 40 °C. Commonly, a multi-evaporator multi-stage refrigeration system with refrigerants like R22, R404A, or NH3 are used in India. However, R22 and R404A have harmful effects on the environment due to their high global warming potential. This study proposed an all-natural multi-evaporator CO2–NH3 cascade refrigeration system (CRS). For comparison, the refrigeration demands in a surimi (seafood) processing and storage plant located in Mumbai were utilized. The study revealed that CO2–NH3 CRS has the highest COP and the lowest annual energy consumption followed by conventional NH3 system. CO2–NH3 CRS exhibited 6.2%, 12.3% and 3.2% less energy consumption compared to R22, R404A, and NH3 systems, respectively. Similarly, CO2–NH3 CRS also showed the lowest total equivalent warming impact which is 26.8%, 44.3% and 3.2% less compared to R22, R404A, and NH3 systems, respectively. Furthermore, CO2–NH3 CRS also presented relatively better results in terms of annual cost rate and life cycle cost.

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Abbreviations

\(\dot{Q}_{{{\text{total}}}}\) :

Total refrigeration load (kW)

\(\dot{W}_{{{\text{net}},\;{\text{CRS}}}}\) :

Net compressor power consumption (kW)

\(C_{{{\text{CO}}_{2} }}\) :

Cost of CO2 avoided (US $ kg−1)

\(C_{{{\text{add}}}}\) :

Additional costs (US $)

\(C_{{{\text{env}}}}\) :

Environmental cost (US $ kg−1)

\(\dot{Q}\) :

Refrigeration load in evaporators (kW)

\(\dot{W}\) :

Compressor power consumption (kW)

\(\dot{m}\) :

Refrigerant mass flow rate (kg s−1)

\(m_{{{\text{charge}}}}\) :

Refrigerant charge (kg)

\(m_{{{\text{leakage}}}}\) :

Total refrigerant leakage (kg)

A :

Heat exchanger area (m2)

ACR:

Annual cost rate (US $ year−1)

AEC:

Annual energy consumption (kWh)

AOC:

Annual operating cost (US $)

H :

Number of operation hours

h :

Specific enthalpy (kJ kg−1)

ICC:

Initial capital cost (US $)

LCC:

Life cycle cost (US $)

LMTD:

Log mean temperature difference (K)

MC:

Maintenance cost (US $)

n :

Number of operational years

R :

Compression ratio

T :

Temperature (°C)

T MC :

Cascade condenser temperature (°C)

U :

Overall heat transfer coefficients (W m−2 K−1)

\(\alpha\) :

Recycling factor

\(\beta\) :

Electricity conversion factor (kg CO2 kWh−1)

\(\eta_{s}\) :

Compressor isentropic efficiency

COP:

Coefficient of performance

CRF:

Capital recovery factor

CRS:

Cascade refrigeration system

ev:

Expansion valve

GWP:

Global warming potential

HFC:

Hydrofluorocarbon

HFO:

Hydrofluoroolefins

HS:

High-stage

HTC:

High temperature circuit

LPR:

Low pressure receiver

LR:

Liquid receiver

LS:

Low-stage

LTC:

Low temperature circuit

ODP:

Ozone depleting potential

TEWI:

Total equivalent warming impact

VCRS:

Vapor compression refrigeration system

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported under grant BT/IN/INNO-Indigo/12/NK/2017-18 from DBT India, and NFR Norway project number 281262 (ReValue: Innovative technologies for improving resource utilization in the Indo- European fish value chains).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, BITS Pilani, Pilani, 333031, India

    Santosh Kumar Saini, Mani Sankar Dasgupta & Souvik Bhattacharyya

  2. SINTEF Ocean, 7465, Trondheim, Norway

    Kristina N. Widell

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  1. Santosh Kumar Saini
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  2. Mani Sankar Dasgupta
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  3. Kristina N. Widell
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  4. Souvik Bhattacharyya
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Contributions

SKS involved in conceptualization, methodology, analysis, original draft preparation, simulation, data collation and chart drawing. MSD involved in conceptualization, methodology, reviewing, editing, supervision and funding acquisition. KNW involved in reviewing, editing and supervision. SB involved in reviewing, editing, supervision and funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Santosh Kumar Saini.

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Saini, S.K., Dasgupta, M.S., Widell, K.N. et al. Energetic, environmental and economic assessment of multi-evaporator CO2–NH3 cascade refrigeration system for seafood application. J Therm Anal Calorim 148, 2845–2856 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-022-11619-7

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