1991 Volume 17 Issue 1 Pages 135-142
A new chemical heat pump using the reaction system of isobutene/water/tertbutanol was proposed for converting low-temperature thermal energy below 373 Kinto high-temperature thermal energy. The possibility of such a heat pump was investigated by equilibrium and kinetic evaluations. The equilibrium evaluation showed the possibility of raising low-level thermal energy above 313K and of raising the temperature more than 40K. The coefficients of performance of the heat pump were calculated from the equilibrium compositions. The activity coefficients of the equilibrium compositions were calculated by the UNIFAC method. The effectiveness of the UNIFAC method was confirmed in practice by the estimation of the solubility of isobutene in tert-butanol solution. The exothermic reaction of isobutene hydration was chosen for kinetic evaluation. The reaction rates were measured and the reaction rate equation was derived from the measured rates. The output capacity was calculated from the exothermic reaction rate and the equilibrium concentration. The kinetic evaluation showed that the output and storage capacities of the reactor were comparable to those of a conventional absorption heat pump.
