Evaporation heat transfer and pressure drop of low GWP R-404A alternative refrigerants in a multiport tube

•Evaporation tests were conducted for R-404A alternative refrigerants - R-448A, R-449A, R-455A, R-454C – in a multiport tube.•The heat transfer coefficients of R-404A were higher than those of the alternative refrigerants.•The pressure drops of the alternative refrigerants were larger than those of R-404A.•Both the nucleate boiling and the convective heat transfer contributed to the heat transfer.•The mixture correlation of shah [53] reasonably predicted the heat transfer coefficients with the RMSE of 0.16.