Question

It is proposed to use water instead of refrigerant-134a as the working fluid in air-conditioning applications where the minimum temperature never falls below the freezing point. Can water be used as the working fluid in air-conditioning applications?

Answer 1

Answer:

No, water can't be used.

Explanation:

No, water cannot be used as the working fluid in air-conditioning applications.

This is because, if we assume the water is maintained at 10°C in the evaporator, the evaporator pressure will now be the saturation pressure that corresponds to this pressure, which in this case would be 1.2 kPa.

So we can conclude that for the refrigerants in the evaporator the temperature of a saturated pressure would be very low and so it's not practical to maintain it with water

Thus, it's is not practical to design refrigeration or air conditioning devices with water as the working fluid because it will involve extremely low pressures.