LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS OF MICROCHANNEL TECHNOLOGY AND COMPACT HEAT EXCHANGERS FOR REFRIGERATING UNITS

摘要

In refrigerating and air conditioning fields, the environmental performances of systems are frequently evaluated by using the TEWI indicator (Total Equivalent Warming Impact). Alone the greenhouse effect is taken into account from this widespread index which seems nevertheless to be inadequate for a global characterisation, including whole environmental impacts of a refrigerating machine during its life, i.e. from cradle to grave. In this article, we propose to apply the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) approach to compare two refrigerating units, destined to an agro-food small application, having the same characteristics of refrigerating capacity and use the same refrigerant (R404A). After a detailed life cycle inventory of both systems, the analysis results show that the use of the micro-channel technology and compact heat exchangers in such sector is energetically and environmentally friendly. It provides an energy saving, a low refrigerant charge, a significant CO{sub}2 emissions reduction (division by 3), in addition of an important decrease of other environmental impacts in terms of human health (33%), ecosystem quality (24%) and resources depletion (25%).