Kandadai Srinivasan

Thermodynamic formalism of minimum heat source temperature for driving advanced adsorption cooling device

This letter presents a thermodynamic formulation to calculate the minimum driving heat source temperature of an advanced solid sorption cooling device, and it is validated with experimental data. This formalism has been developed from the rigor of the Boltzmann distribution function and the condensation approximation of adsorptive molecules. An interesting and useful finding has been established from this formalism that it is possible to construct a solid sorption refrigeration device that operates in a cycle transferring heat from a low temperature source to a heat sink with a driving heat source at a temperature close to but above ambient.

A method for the calculation of the adsorbed phase volume and pseudo-saturation pressure from adsorption isotherm data on activated carbon

We propose a new method for evaluating the adsorbed phase volume during physisorption of several gases on activated carbon specimens. We treat the adsorbed phase as another equilibrium phase which satisfies the Gibbs equation and hence assume that the law of rectilinear diameters is applicable. Since invariably the bulk gas phase densities are known along measured isotherms, the constants of the adsorbed phase volume can be regressed from the experimental data. We take the Dubinin-Astakhov isotherm as the model for verifying our hypothesis since it is one of the few equations that accounts for adsorbed phase volume changes. In addition, the pseudo-saturation pressure in the supercritical region is calculated by letting the index of the temperature term in Dubinins equation to be temperature dependent. Based on over 50 combinations of activated carbons and adsorbates (nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons and halocarbon refrigerants) it is observed that the proposed changes fit experimental data quite well.