Modeling the Impact of Ventilation Strategies on In-Cabin Air Quality and Energy Efficiency of the R744 Heat Pump

Conventional Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems in electric vehicles significantly penalize the driving range due to high power consumption, particularly during heating operation. While R744 heat pump systems are gaining traction as a promising solution for addressing this limitation, their ventilation strategies pose a complex trade-off between energy consumption and in-vehicle air quality (IAQ). Specifically, the continuous use of recirculation mode to enhance energy efficiency can lead to the accumulation of occupant-exhaled CO2 conversely, introducing fresh air to dilute CO2 results in both an energy penalty and the infiltration of external pollutants. To analyze this complex trade-off under varying fresh-to-recirculated air ratios, this study developed a model of an automotive R744 HVAC system and IAQ considering CO2 and PM2.5 using the 1D simulation tool AMEsim. The system model was validated against experimental data from the literature, demonstrating high fidelity with overall relative errors consistently within 10%. The analysis of the ventilation strategy reveals a distinct IAQ trade-off: increased fresh air intake effectively diluted in-cabin CO2 concentrations but simultaneously increases the infiltration of external PM2.5. In terms of energy efficiency, during cooling mode, increased fresh air intake reduces the system COP from 1.77 to 1.54 and increases total battery consumption by up to 57%. Conversely, in heating mode, the increased fresh air intake enhances heat exchanger efficiency, leading to a rise in the COP by up to 9%. However, due to the higher overall thermal load, the total battery consumption still increases by up to 24%.