Sorbtion

SORBTION 2011.

Chemical sorbtion was used, as far as I know, for refrigeration, by Faraday. He filled an inverted evacuated U tube with Silver Choride at one end and Ammonia at the other end. Leaving the tube exposed to the room air, the Ammonia formed an Ammoniacate with the Silver Cloride, and the Ammonia evaporated producing very low temperatures. The system was regenerated by heating the Ammoniacate.

In 1976, a small group of students from the University of Sevilla, Spain, performed a series of relevant experiments on this Field, under my direction, with the purpose of designing an open cycle dessicant air conditioning system.

Realizing that we had to deal with the Clapeyron Equation, we investigated many possible Solid-Gas reversible reactions.

Our attention was caught by two of the most promising reactions.

MgSO4 + 7H2O = MgSO4.7H2O + 411 Kj/mol

CaCl2 + 6H2O = Ca Cl2.6H2O + 361 Kj /mol.

I will not mention here the long research on dessicant cycles.

Later in Long Island N.Y, USA, our attention was diverted to evacuated systems, as per Faraday, concentrating in AC for automobiles and in seasonal Heat Storage.

The equations show that for a standard house, a few Tons (Metric) of the salts were sufficient.

That was around 1979: We inmediately saw that converting a Faraday evacuated tube into a 15 Ton system was an Engineering nonsense.

So we changed the system from evacuated to Air or Nitrogen mixed at atmospheric pressure. This system can be consructed with standard building thecnologies.

For example: The water vapor produced in the Evaporator/Condenser Vessel is transported by the Air to the Salt containing Vessel. There it reacts with the salt producing an Hydrate + Heat.

But the velocity of the reaction, compared with the reaction under vacuum, is ridiculously small.

The solution is to increase the velocity of the Air/Vapor mixture with fans.

But doing so the thermal losses are so large that the system becomes impractical.

The reasonable solution is to install an heat exchanger between the Salt Vessel and the Water vessel.

But, in order to make the system feasible we need a Heat Exchanger of an efficiency of more than 99%.

Fortunately we had invented before, this nearly marvelous Exchanger, which I would not explain here ( Based in the XIX Century Siemens Furnaces).

The US Company had a catastrophic end, and all the patents and knowhow were lost. Except what I still keep in my mind.

In all his Time, since then, there has been a notorious interest in he subject, but up to date, everybody went through the evacuated vessel approach, (See Fraunhofer Institut Germany).

So apparently I still lead this interesting Field.

If somebody wants to get my Knowhow, possibly free, please write to

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