Nanoparticles are widely used to improve the performance of thermal systems because these substances can improve the thermophysical properties of fluids. This study utilizes nanoparticles to improve the thermal performance of the R22-based refrigeration system. In this experiment, CuO were selected as nanoparticles with variations of 0 %, 0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%, based on the concentration of weight. The cycle performance with nanoparticles shows that evaporator capacity is increased by 13.3%, the energy consumption is decreased by 3.7%, and the COP is increased by 17%. The best result was obtained with a 0.6% mass fraction of the refrigerant.