415 Development of a small temperature difference generator by using the dissociation and expansion characteristics of a CO_2 hydrate

Abstract

In a cold region, because, the energy demand for residential heating is high in winter season, energy saving, greenhouse gas emission, and air pollution are major issue. On the other hand, in recent years, gas hydrates have emerged as new energy sources. In this work, a distributed energy system is proposed by exploiting the unique state-change property of CO_2 hydrate through the heat cycle which employs the ambient cold air and the geothermal heat, as cold and hot medium, respectively. The proposed system is environmentally friendly because it does not burn any type of fossil fuel and also input heat energy are supplied by a renewable source. In this study, we clarified the characteristics of the output of the proposed generation system by examinations of a test equipment.