Authors:

Zhichen Guan

Date Created:

Not specified

Course Title:

Professor:

Not specified

About Paper:

Current air conditioning in buildings relies on the vapor compression cycle. Hydrofluorocarbons (HFC) are one of the most common refrigerants used in the vapor compression cycle, but they have significant environmental impacts through their global warming potential (GWP). Other systems that use hydrofluoroolefins (HFOs) exhibit low efficiency. Thus, the quest for highly efficient and environmentally friendly refrigerants has become a pressing issue. Ionocaloric effect - the temperature lift crafted by adding ions surrounding a solid phase - is a potential solution to the problem. This research aims to investigate the ionocaloric effect both theoretically and experimentally. The goal is to utilize the ionocaloric effect to develop an environmentally friendly and energy-efficient cooling cycle. We modeled the adiabatic temperature change of isenthalpic and isentropic mixing. The model determines the thermodynamic property of the mixing process. In terms of the experiment, we used a home-built adiabatic chamber to measure the temperature change. We compared the performance of two systems: ethylene carbonate + sodium iodide and ethylene carbonate + zinc chloride. Result shows that ethylene carbonate + sodium iodide has larger temperature span than ethylene carbonate + zinc chloride. The superior performance of the ethylene carbonate + sodium iodide system can be attributed to the higher solubility and greater entropy change of sodium iodide in ethylene carbonate. Comparison between experimental adiabatic temperature change and thermodynamics model reveals that the mixing process approximates an isentropic process. Future studies include separating the salt from the system to achieve the whole ionocaloric refrigeration cycle. Keywords: Ionocaloric Effect; Refrigeration Cycle; Thermodynamics Modeling

Source:

Purdue University / 2024

Topics:

No topics listed

Co-authors:

Zhichen Guan