SELECTION OF REFRIGERANTS FOR DOMESTIC APPLICATIONS USING MADM TECHNIQUES

The factors that influence refrigerant production and selection are numerous and often contradictory. However, there are numerous options available today that take into account all aspects of refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC). The RAC industry is currently going through a critical period in which no new traditional refrigerants can be developed or consumed. To secure a brighter forthcoming time, safer and eco-friendly refrigerants will remain in demand. The worldwide community is currently exploring the refrigerants that work to save the ozone layer or contribute in the reduction of global warming. Natural refrigerants such as CO2, NH3, and hydrocarbons such as R290, R600, R600a, 106and hydrocarbon blends provide a viable solution to this difficulty, and they are still employed efficiently in certain systems. As there is a long list of such types of refrigerants, sometimes, it is confusing and tedious work to select the best refrigerant for home and domestic purposes. In this context, this work is an endeavor to choose the best available refrigerant using multi-attributes decision-making (MADM) techniques. Three MADM techniques namely simple additive weighting (SAW), gray relation analysis (GRA), and VIKOR have been implemented to select the ideal refrigerant from a prepared list of most common and usable refrigerants. All three methods R290 as the best refrigerant to be used for domestic purposes, keeping all the basic properties and environmental criteria in mind.