<![CDATA[Indramayu Regency is the leading mango-producing area in West Java, Indonesia, and a large share of its off-grade harvest is processed into mango puree. It has a high moisture content and deteriorates rapidly unless it is processed and frozen in blast freezer promptly. Direct Expansion (DX) evaporators are commonly used in small-scale blast freezers, whereas flooded evaporators may improve heat transfer through continuous refrigerant wetting, although experimental comparisons at Micro, Small, And Medium Enterprise (MSME) scale remain limited. This study experimentally compared the refrigeration performance of a 10 kg mango puree blast freezer equipped with flooded and DX evaporators. Both configurations used R134a and a ½ hp hermetic compressor and were tested for 180 minutes under otherwise identical conditions. Refrigerant temperatures and pressures, electrical current, and supply voltage were recorded. The measured data were used with the R134a pressure–enthalpy diagram to estimate cooling capacity, compressor work, actual and Carnot Coefficients of Performance (COP), and refrigeration efficiency. The flooded configuration achieved a lower suction temperature (−15.4°C versus −12.4°C), higher cooling capacity (0.95 versus 0.92 kW), higher actual COP (3.23 versus 3.13), and higher refrigeration efficiency (71% versus 65%). Its Carnot COP was lower (4.5 versus 4.8). These results indicate better calculated refrigeration-system performance for the flooded configuration under the tested conditions. Repeated trials, direct mass-flow measurements, and product temperature and freezing-time measurements are needed to validate these findings and establish their practical significance for MSME-scale mango puree processing.]]>
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