Analysis and Comparison Study on Different HFC Refrigerants for Space Heating Air Source Heat Pump in Rural Residential Buildings of North China

Abstract To improve the energy efficiency and environment friendliness of space heating in rural areas of North China, air source heat pump was appointed to be suggested substitution for existing small coal boilers. The utilization of air source heat pump for space heating in North China still face challenges and problems such as heating capacity, frosting, and low COP. High efficient refrigerant should be developed to further optimize the air source heat pump for space heating. Aimed to find the refrigerant which has higher COP in dynamic heating process, different pure HFC refrigerants including R32, R134a, R143a, and R152a were analyzed and compared. The results show that R152a has higher COP than other refrigerant candidates, and R152a could be a reasonable choice of pure HFC refrigerant for space heating air source heat pump in rural residential buildings of North China.