Assessment of antifreeze solutions for ground-source heat pump systems
- New Mexico Engineering Research Inst., Albuquerque, NM (United States). Center for Global Environmental Technology
- Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
This paper assesses the risks of using six different fluids (methanol, ethanol, aqueous potassium acetate, propylene glycol, aqueous calcium magnesium acetate, and aqueous urea) as antifreezes in ground-source heat pump (GSHP) systems. Areas assessed included fire hazard; corrosion and leakage; health hazard; environmental; detailed heat pump system analysis, resulting in predictions of annual energy use, life-cycle cost, and power plant emissions; and regulatory risk to future use. For each area, each antifreeze was rated as having either significant potential for problems, minor potential for problems, or little or no potential for problems. Propylene glycol had low risk in all areas, despite having higher energy use; potassium acetate, calcium magnesium acetate, and urea had low to medium risk in all areas except leakage, which was high for all three fluids, and corrosion, which was high for urea; ethanol and methanol had high fire risk in their pure forms (but low risk in diluted form) and corrosion problems with iron compounds. In addition, ethanol had high environmental and health risks.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG07-95ID13347
- OSTI ID:
- 349994
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970668-; TRN: IM9925%%145
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) annual meeting, Boston, MA (United States), 28 Jun - 2 Jul 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997; Related Information: Is Part Of ASHRAE transactions: Technical and symposium papers, 1997. Volume 103, Part 2; PB: 1072 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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