Analyzing Properties of Air as a natural refrigerant using MCDM methodology

Abstract

Refrigerant selection is a challenging task because it often requires compromising desirable properties. Since we have so many refrigerants in the market to choose from and all are either pure or mixtures. Achieving all desirable properties for a refrigerant for a specific application is very rare and a perplexing task, which takes months if not years to come to a conclusion to select the right refrigerant. Among these conflicting and challenging circumstances, the selection of a refrigerant would be easy if properties of a desirable refrigerant are listed and analyzed for their importance. There exist a literature gap providing information on prioritizing the properties required for an ideal refrigerant which is pure, natural and abundant. This proposed research provides a list of properties of air as a natural refrigerant and prioritizes the refrigerant properties based on weightage. Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) based DEMATEL methodology is used to provide weights for the refrigerant properties. The results show Ozone depleting potential among effect group and Cost of the refrigerant among because group are the top properties. The managerial application is also discussed.