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.

High Temperature Catalytic Hydrogenation of Acetone over Raney Ni for Chemical Heat Pump

Exothermic hydrogenation reaction of acetone is an important part of an IAH-CHP, and the performance of IAH-CHP is affected directly by this reaction. This paper studies the influence of space velocity, temperature, hydrogen flow rate and pressure on conversion and selectivity experimentally. The byproducts are analyzed and classified into three types: hydrogenation product, cracking products and condensation products. Both the conversion and selectivity of this reaction have the same trend with the change of space velocity, temperature and hydrogen flow rate, and has the opposite trend with the change of pressure. As the space velocity increases, the conversion curve is a gradual decline parabola but the selectivity curve is close to a straight line. Hydrogen flow rate has a more obvious influence on conversion than temperature, whereas on selectivity the situation is opposite. High pressure increases the conversion of acetone to all products, but the increment of byproducts is more than that of isopropanol, so the selectivity decreases as pressure increases.

Mass and Heat Transfer Enhancement of Chemical Heat Pumps

An inert additive, expanded graphite (EG), has been prepared and used to enhance the heat and mass transfer process of chemical heat pumps. The effects of mixing ratio and mixing method on the chemical reaction time are investigated.

Exergy analysis and performance enhancement of isopropanol-acetone-hydrogen chemical heat pump

Exergy loss analysis was conducted to identify the irreversibility in each component of the isopropanol- acetone-hydrogen chemical heat pump （IAH-CHP）. The results indicate that the highest irreversibility on a system basis occurs in the distillation column. Moreover, the effect of operating parameters on thermodynamic performances of the IAH-CHP was studied and the optimal conditions were obtained. Finally, the potential methods to reduce the irreversibility of the IAH-CHP system were investigated. It is found that reactive distillation is apromising alternative. The enthalpy and exergy efficiency of the IAH-CHP with reactive distillation increases by 24.1% and 23.2%, respectively.

Modelling of the Absorption and Desorption Process of Chemical Heat Pumps

A simple model for the desorption and absorption process of the chemical heat pump is presented in this paper, It is based on the assumption of a definite reaction front. The results from m this model are compared with those obtained by finite difference method and it is observed that there is almost no difference between them.

Simulation of Gas Exothermic Chemical Reaction in Porous Media Reactor with Lattice Boltzmann Method

Exothermic reactor is the main part in a chemical heat pump. It involves complex multi-component exothermal chemical reaction in catalyst-filled porous media. The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is developed to simulate the characteristics of fluid flow, heat and mass transfer coupling chemical reaction in the exothermic reactor of the isopropanol/acetone/hydrogen chemical heat pump system. Fractal theory is used to structure a porous medium model in the reactor. The simulation results show that LBM is suitable for the simulation and the conversion has an optimal value with different inlet velocities.

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.

Experimental Study of Isopropanol Dehydrogenation over Amorphous Alloy Raney Nickel Catalysts

The dehydrogenation reaction of isopropanol occurring at low temperature is of great industrial importance. It is a key procedure in isopropanol/acetone/hydrogen chemical heat pump system. An experimental investigation was performed to study the behavior of the liquid phase dehydrogenation of isopropanol over amorphous alloy Raney nickel catalysts. Un-promoted and promoted catalysts were used and their performances were compared under various catalyst amounts, acetone content in the reactant and reaction temperature ranging from 348 K to 355 K.It is found that there exists an optimum catalyst concentration which is about 0.34 g in 300 ml isopropanol. The temperature has evident effect on the reaction. The presence of activities of Fe-promoted catalyst decrease slightly compared to the un-promoted catalyst when the temperature are 348 K and 351 K. Besides, the reaction rate decreases almost linearly with the increase of acetone volume fraction in the reactant.

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.