Reaction Rate Characteristics of SrBr2 Hydration System for Chemical Heat Pump Cooling Mode

Here, we propose a chemical heat pump chiller with a SrBr2 hydration reaction system for utilization of waste heat. The SrBr2 hydration reaction could recover waste heat in low temperatures ranging from 373 K to 353 K, and the system showed good potential in terms of the high cooling thermal-storage density. Previous studies have given little information on the reaction characteristics of the SrBr2 hydration reaction. In this paper, we developed a measuring method for the hydration reaction equilibrium and reaction rate based on the volumetric method. We analyzed the hydration reaction rate with an unreacted-core shell model. In the experiments, the SrBr2 equilibrium temperature observed was equal to the theoretical equilibrium temperature obtained from thermodynamic databases. In addition, the hysteresis gap between the hydration and dehydration values was 2.0 K. Thus, the hysteresis effect was negligible for the chemical heat pump cooling operation. The reaction fraction of the SrBr2 hydration reached 0.7 within 20 s. By analyzing the hydration reaction rate with the unreacted-core shell model, the activation energy value was calculated to be56.6 kJ/mol. The calculation results showed good agreement with those of the experiment as the reaction fraction reached 0.7.

Experimental Evaluation of the Heat Output/Input and Coefficient of Performance Characteristics of a Chemical Heat Pump in the Periodic Operation of CaCl₂Hydration

We herein evaluate the use of a chemical heat pump (CHP) for upgrading waste heat. CaCl2 was used in the system of CHP. We evaluated the heat storage and heat releasing of CHP, and confirmed the practicality from the experimental results. The reactor module employed was an aluminum plate-tube heat exchanger with corrugated fins, and the CaCl2 powder was in the form of a packed bed. Heat storage operation and heat dissipation operation are performed at the same time and supplied to the heat demand destination. At this time, an environmental heat source can be used during the heat radiation operation, and the heat output can release more heat than the heat input during heat storage. The heat discharging and charging characteristics of the reactor module were evaluated experimentally. The coefficient of performance (COP) was calculated for the heat upgrading cycle, and the heat output in the system was determined. A COP of 1.42 and output of 650 W/L, based on the heat exchanger volume, were obtained using a 600 s change time for the heat pump.

A structured packed-bed reactor designed for exothermic hydrogenation of acetone

Fixed-bed reactors randomly packed with catalysts have many disadvantages that may adversely affect the desired chemical reaction.The increasingly used monolithic reactor,in contrast,has many operational advantages;however,for a kinetically-controlled reaction,it does not contain sufficient catalyst to sustain the reaction.To address the problems associated with both randomly packed-bed reactor and the monolithic reactor,a structured packed-bed reactor was proposed and mathematical models were built for randomly packed-bed reactor and structured packed-bed reactor.Their respective performances were compared when applied to the exothermic reaction of the isopropanol-acetone-hydrogen chemical heat pump system.The results showed that the structured packed-bed reactor performed better in terms of pressure drop and heat transfer capacity,and had a lower radial temperature gradient,indicating that this reactor had a higher effective heat conductivity.Isopropanol on the catalyst particle surfaces was more concentrated near the tube wall because a wall effect existed in the boundary layer around the particle-wall contact points.

3D CFD modeling of acetone hydrogenation in fixed bed reactor with spherical particles

Acetone hydrogenation in a fixed bed reactor packed with spherical catalyst particles was simulated to study the effects of inlet gas velocity and particle diameter on hydrogenation reaction. Computational results show that the catalyst particles in the reactor are almost isothermal, and the high isopropanol concentration appears at the lee of the particles. With the increase of inlet velocity, the outlet isopropanol mole fraction decreases, and the total pressure drop increases drastically. Small diameter catalyst particles are favorable for acetone hydrogenation, but result in large pressure drop.