Investigation of the performance of a heat pump that uses CO2 as working fluid.

Abstract

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the world today, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a critical part of mitigating its impacts. Conventional residential heat pumps use Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) as the working fluid which are very potent green house gases. CO2 has zero-ozone depletion potential, low Global Warming Potential (GWP), non-toxicity, non-flammability, and superior thermodynamic properties, showing good promise as a replacement candidate for the conventional working fluid. In this thesis the performance of a trans-critical CO2 was investigated using modeling tool Dymola. The model was calibrated against a real-world protype heat pump to show its validity. The optimal parameters were found, and it shows that the system gives 39% performance over the baseline, showcasing just how important effective design is.