Measurement of air leakage and air change rates of a household refrigerator by tracer gas methods

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Other Title
  • トレーサーガスを用いた家庭用冷蔵庫の漏気・換気回数測定
  • トレーサー ガス オ モチイタ カテイヨウ レイゾウコ ノ ロウキ カンキ カイスウ ソクテイ

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Abstract

Recently, a household refrigerator is becoming large enough to store a large quantity of foods and beverages, and airtight for energy-saving and hence reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, this type of change in structure may cause air contaminations by gaseous chemicals such as ethylene, odor gases and carbonyl compounds which has been found in air of refrigerators. Such chemicals potentially influence on food freshness and human health. In order to investigate the behavior or fate of such chemicals in the refrigerator, the air leakage and/or change rates should be one of the important parameters. However, no data has been previously reported on the air leakage and air change rate of household refrigerators. Then, the authors practically measured the air leakage and air change rates of a household refrigerator (225 L) using two tracer gas methods; CO2 decay method and Hexafluorobenzene(HxFB)-Passive Sampler(PS) method, which has been commonly used for the measurement of air change rate of houses. The both methods were firstly tested to measure air change rate of the refrigerator with pulling air at constant rates of 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 /h. Relative error of the measured values by both methods ranged from 2 to 30% to the set values. The air leakage rate of the closed refrigerator was then obtained by CO2 decay and HxFB-PS methods, and no significant difference was found between the respective measured values. These results showed the both methods were applicable for the household refrigerator, even though the temperature was low. Then, the air change rate of the refrigerator with openings and closings was measured by the HxFB-PS method. In this case, the CO2 decay method seemed not suitable due to rapid and intermittent decrease in gas concentration. According to JIS C 9801 method, the doors of cold room and freezer were opened 35 and 8 time per day respectively, during 3 days. The air change rate resulted in 0.36 /h, which were close to double the air leakage rate of the refrigerator.

Journal

  • Indoor Environment

    Indoor Environment 14 (1), 25-33, 2011

    Society of Indoor Environment, Japan

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