A while back I was talking with the engineering department at work regarding the high demand of electricity and our usage. They noted that in order to help the grid out they had started the generators and transferred our EM outlets to generator. Another thing they were going to do was startup the natural gas air conditioners (chillers).
I know of the existence of Liquid Propane refrigeration systems for those without grid power. And I suppose they are used on RVs. These chillers apparently work on the same principle. (I believe the NG chillers at work used Lithium Bromide.)
This got me to thinking. A 12 ounce can of R-134a is now hovering around $10. R-12 is impossible to get. A bit of web searching reveals there are several methods of using natural gas and or LPG to cool or refrigerate. One method uses heat from a "boiler" fired by gas. Automobile engines produce vast amounts of waste heat that goes out the radiator or out the tail pipe. One natural gas absorption system showed the "heat in" side as being only 98 Degrees F. This is EASILY obtainable from a car.
While I understand and repair my own AC systems using the standard compressor, I am not very familiar with the Natural Gas and LPG refrigeration systems. One site I checked out indicated that there is not even a need for a pump and a properly designed system would work on heat and gravity alone. The obvious question is: Why isn't this type of system used on cars?
I'm obviously missing something. From my web searching I noted that the refrigerators using this type of cooling are much smaller than standard refrigerators and are many times more expensive. Is this the deciding factor? I would think a bunch of heat exchaning tubing and no real need for a pump would be a significantly cheaper solution than a compressor and associated tubing.
Would someone familiar with these systems please comment?
Natural Gas Refrigeration
Natural Gas Refrigeration
No trees were harmed in the creation of this message. But billions of electrons, photons, and electromagnetic waves were terribly inconvenienced!
I do not know what the refridgerante(sic) for the RV's, but they use heat from a propane burner or a AC heater when switched to AC power to do the cooling.
I have a 2006 travel trailer that the refridgerator works extremely well.
It has a small freezer, about 1.5 cu/ft. It will freeze ice cubes in about 1 hour after putting the filled trays in the freezer. It works equally well on
AC power or propane.
I have a 2006 travel trailer that the refridgerator works extremely well.
It has a small freezer, about 1.5 cu/ft. It will freeze ice cubes in about 1 hour after putting the filled trays in the freezer. It works equally well on
AC power or propane.
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Chris Smith
- Posts: 4325
- Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2001 1:01 am
- Location: Bieber Ca.
Practicality size, volume, and type of gas is the reason.
If you could get the manufactures off their butts they could easily build a Exhaust heated AC system that would circulate fluid and remove the heat out of the cab.
However they must redesign a efficient complete new system and the gas would have to be people friendly while the system would have to be sealed, flexible, and let the car parts move with out breaking.
In a Propane system, ours uses a small flame in the same spot as the electric heater to warm the gas and send it packing around in circles on its own to do its job.
In a car the volume would be much bigger and so would the system have to be, as well as possibly a small pump to do more than design speed of the cooling?
Most fridges only use between one ounce to three ounces of gas, while most cars pump and use five to seven 12 ounce cans of gas because of the amount of heat energy they move.
That’s 2 ounces VS five or six pounds of heat carrying gas.
But,...It can be done.
As long as human are out of danger they use other cheap gasses such as ammonia in the industry and these work well and are very cheap, however they are deadly to humans and illegal to use around them.
Also the Peltier system can heat, cool, and even produce electricity all in one if they ever decide to use them?
The whole system is called “heat pumpingâ€
If you could get the manufactures off their butts they could easily build a Exhaust heated AC system that would circulate fluid and remove the heat out of the cab.
However they must redesign a efficient complete new system and the gas would have to be people friendly while the system would have to be sealed, flexible, and let the car parts move with out breaking.
In a Propane system, ours uses a small flame in the same spot as the electric heater to warm the gas and send it packing around in circles on its own to do its job.
In a car the volume would be much bigger and so would the system have to be, as well as possibly a small pump to do more than design speed of the cooling?
Most fridges only use between one ounce to three ounces of gas, while most cars pump and use five to seven 12 ounce cans of gas because of the amount of heat energy they move.
That’s 2 ounces VS five or six pounds of heat carrying gas.
But,...It can be done.
As long as human are out of danger they use other cheap gasses such as ammonia in the industry and these work well and are very cheap, however they are deadly to humans and illegal to use around them.
Also the Peltier system can heat, cool, and even produce electricity all in one if they ever decide to use them?
The whole system is called “heat pumpingâ€
Hello jollyrgr
25 years ago, I attempted to transplant the guts of an absorption cycle refrigerator to my car. -Kerosene Electrolux-
After studying deeply the process, the use of exhaust gases heat looked promising, actually, overwhelming. The amount of cooling yield didn't (for an automobile demand).
Probably a higher capacity system would be kind of acceptable, but all I had to play with was a domestic refrigerator.
The dimensions do not appear to be a problem, what seems to be a problem is the motion of the vehicle and its effects in critical levels of the ammonia inside elaborated and ingenious piping.
I did buy a couple for remote farms with no electrical power supply, they work fine. There is no servicing other than checking the flame wick and fuel supply. It can run even with a candle! If in trouble, the service procedure is only a paragraph: Turn the refrigerator upside down for a few hours and return to normal position.
Use "absorption cycle" and "Electrolux" in your searches to find more about it.
Miguel
25 years ago, I attempted to transplant the guts of an absorption cycle refrigerator to my car. -Kerosene Electrolux-
After studying deeply the process, the use of exhaust gases heat looked promising, actually, overwhelming. The amount of cooling yield didn't (for an automobile demand).
Probably a higher capacity system would be kind of acceptable, but all I had to play with was a domestic refrigerator.
The dimensions do not appear to be a problem, what seems to be a problem is the motion of the vehicle and its effects in critical levels of the ammonia inside elaborated and ingenious piping.
I did buy a couple for remote farms with no electrical power supply, they work fine. There is no servicing other than checking the flame wick and fuel supply. It can run even with a candle! If in trouble, the service procedure is only a paragraph: Turn the refrigerator upside down for a few hours and return to normal position.
Use "absorption cycle" and "Electrolux" in your searches to find more about it.
Miguel
natural gas cooling systems
This is probably not relevant to cars but is a lot of methods.
1.CO2 is sometimes recycled from smoke stacks and used to make "gassy fast food beverages".
It comes in tanks and is mixed with the syrup and H2:O in the machine. However, if you rapidly spray the tank into a radiator with a fan blowing on it, dry ice forms temporarily inside the radiator and cool air comes though it. This is not commonly done. Tanks of CO2 are also used as fire extinguishers... CO2 is heavier than air and should not be used without ventilation or it can displace oxygen, a totally different problem than with CO which is a poison.
2.Natural gas is methane, propane and butane etc. Freon is any of these with chloride or fluoride added. The CL or F makes the gass not flammable since they are more reactive than oxygen. Any of these gass and other gas gets a lot colder when it's pressure drops, which always happens when it's released from a tank. Fridge and AC tech usually contains a compressor outside and decompression happens inside, and this is a heat pump. Propane can replace freon except that it's flammable and is dangerous if it escapes. Ammonia and methane are both lighter than air and dissipate fast but the others I mentioned are heavier than air so they are more dangerous.
3.A windmill that runs an air compressor is quite an interesting novelty.
Compressed air is not only "cool" but it is used as a mechanical power source in industry.
New cooling technologies are interesting but I have no practical info to share.
1.CO2 is sometimes recycled from smoke stacks and used to make "gassy fast food beverages".
It comes in tanks and is mixed with the syrup and H2:O in the machine. However, if you rapidly spray the tank into a radiator with a fan blowing on it, dry ice forms temporarily inside the radiator and cool air comes though it. This is not commonly done. Tanks of CO2 are also used as fire extinguishers... CO2 is heavier than air and should not be used without ventilation or it can displace oxygen, a totally different problem than with CO which is a poison.
2.Natural gas is methane, propane and butane etc. Freon is any of these with chloride or fluoride added. The CL or F makes the gass not flammable since they are more reactive than oxygen. Any of these gass and other gas gets a lot colder when it's pressure drops, which always happens when it's released from a tank. Fridge and AC tech usually contains a compressor outside and decompression happens inside, and this is a heat pump. Propane can replace freon except that it's flammable and is dangerous if it escapes. Ammonia and methane are both lighter than air and dissipate fast but the others I mentioned are heavier than air so they are more dangerous.
3.A windmill that runs an air compressor is quite an interesting novelty.
Compressed air is not only "cool" but it is used as a mechanical power source in industry.
New cooling technologies are interesting but I have no practical info to share.
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Chris Smith
- Posts: 4325
- Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2001 1:01 am
- Location: Bieber Ca.
??
Does it have to use a open flame to work???, could some other way of heating be devised that would still use less energy than a standard 'frig. Exhaust, smell, and carbon monoxide is a worry .
Kim..The man with the cute little girls name...and Frankensteins face and body.
If interested in purchasing a gaseous refridgerator, check Lehman Hardware, Kidron, Ohio. They are in the middle of the largest Amish settlement in the USA.
http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemID= ... C810%2C816
http://www.lehmans.com/jump.jsp?itemID= ... C810%2C816
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Chris Smith
- Posts: 4325
- Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2001 1:01 am
- Location: Bieber Ca.
I thought this was about making it cold.
Is lithium bromide an "natural gas"? From where in nature does it come?
I thought it's an inorganic salt with theraputic effects on manic depressive people.
How about having a swimming pool as a heat sink under a reflective roof, and by
pumping the water through fanned radiators, and on the worst days of summer,
you can jump in the pool and enjoy a soak in the "hot tub" then cool off in the house?
I really doubt the shaded pool could get hot. Evaporation would cool it.
Is lithium bromide an "natural gas"? From where in nature does it come?
I thought it's an inorganic salt with theraputic effects on manic depressive people.
How about having a swimming pool as a heat sink under a reflective roof, and by
pumping the water through fanned radiators, and on the worst days of summer,
you can jump in the pool and enjoy a soak in the "hot tub" then cool off in the house?
I really doubt the shaded pool could get hot. Evaporation would cool it.
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Chris Smith
- Posts: 4325
- Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2001 1:01 am
- Location: Bieber Ca.
You cant make cold with out the heat, while the refrigerant and the heat source are two different things.
Natural gas, kerosine, candle power or electric heat is applied to the refrigerant be it the Freon, liquid salt, ammonia etc.
These gasses are chosen for their properties, weight and effectiveness for working as a refrigerant.
This refrigerant is merely the cooling method or energy transfer system.
The heat source manipulates this gas and allows the system to get both hot and cold in their appropriate areas forming the heat pump or refrigerator.
Natural gas, kerosine, candle power or electric heat is applied to the refrigerant be it the Freon, liquid salt, ammonia etc.
These gasses are chosen for their properties, weight and effectiveness for working as a refrigerant.
This refrigerant is merely the cooling method or energy transfer system.
The heat source manipulates this gas and allows the system to get both hot and cold in their appropriate areas forming the heat pump or refrigerator.
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