Perkembangan Teknik Refrigerasi dan Pemanfaatan Hidrokarbon sebagai Refrigeran untuk Mesin Pembeku

Abstract

As a tropical country relying on agricultural products, Indonesia has much concern in the development of refrigeration technology. After the ratification of the Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol, the global problem in refrigeration industries will also be dealt with in Indonesia. This paper briefly reviews the history of research and development in the field of refrigeration, especially the research and invention in hydrocarbon refrigerant. It is shown that even though hydrocarbon refrigerant can potentially replace the CFC, HCFC and HFC refrigerant, especially after Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol, its refrigerating performance is still below that of the commercial one. Research in this field is still focused on the development of new hydrocarbon composition. However, the utilization of hydrocarbon refrigerant could probably increase the complexity of the design and construction of the refrigerator itself It is necessary to conduct research on the utilization of the hydrocarbon refrigerant from the thermal design approach in order to uncover the possibility of minimum modification or retrofitting of the existing refrigerator.