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Hydrocarbons (HCs) are excellent refrigerants in many ways such as energy efficiency, critical point, solubility, transport and heat transfer properties, but they are also flammable, which causes the need for changes in standards, production and product. There are increasing number of scientists and engineers who believe that an alternative solution, which has been overlooked, may be provided by using HCs. The main objective of this study is to perform energy and exergy analyses for a vapor compression refrigeration system with an internal heat exchanger using a HC, isobutene (R600a). For a refrigeration capacity of 1 kW and cold chamber temperature of 0°C, energy and exergy balances are taken into account to determine the performance of the refrigeration system. Energy and exergy fluxes are determined, and irreversibility rates are calculated for every component of the system. It is seen that the compressor has the highest irreversibility rate, and the heat exchanger has the lowest. Also from the result of the analysis, it is found that condenser and evaporator temperatures have strong effects on energetic and exergetic performances of the system such as coefficient of performance (COP), efficiency ratio (τ), exergetic efficiency (ξ) and irreversibility rate. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Refractance Window® evaporator represents a novel concept in the design of evaporation systems for small food processing plants. In this system thermal energy from circulating hot water is transmitted through a plastic sheet to evaporate water from a liquid product flowing concurrently on the top surface of the plastic. The objectives of this study were to investigate the heat transfer characteristics of this evaporator, determine its energy consumption, and capacity at different tilt angles and product flow rates. The system performance was evaluated with tap water, raspberry juice, and blueberry juice and puree as feed. With a direct steam injection heating method, the steam economy ranged from 0.64 to 0.84, while the overall heat transfer coefficient (U) was 666 W m-2 °C-1. Under this condition, the highest evaporation capacity was 27.1 kg h-1 m-2 for blueberry juice and 31.8 kg h-1 m-2 for blueberry puree. The energy consumption was 2492-2719 kJ kg-1 of water evaporated. Installation of a shell and tube heat exchanger with better temperature control minimized incidences of boiling and frequent discharge of condensate. The steam economy, highest evaporation rate and overall heat transfer coefficient increased to 0.99, 36.0 kg h-1 m-2 and 733 W m-2 °C-1, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]