Steam Jet Refrigeration System

Principle of Working If the pressure is reduced, water boils at low temperatures Consider a flash chamber containing 100 kg of water. Reduce pressure by throttling steam through nozzles If suddenly 1 kg of water is removed by boiling, (by reduction of pressure using throttling ), approximately 2385 kJ of heat will be removed from the water, (heat of evaporation of water, hfg at )

 The fall in temperature of the remaining water (99 kg) will be Q = m *Cp *dT dT = 2385 / (99* 4.187) = 5.7 C Evaporating 1 more kg of water reduces the remaining water temperature by 5.7 C Evaporating one more kg of water will reduce the temperature by 5.7 C By continuing this process remaining water can be made to freeze.

Schematic

Operation of Steam Jet Refrigeration: Water is used as refrigerant High pressure steam from the boiler is expanded in the nozzle, this helps to keep way the vapor formed due to flashing of water in flash chamber Water vapor from the flash chamber is entrained with the high velocity steam jet It is further compressed in the thermo compressor. Generally, 1% evaporation of water in the flash chamber is sufficient to decrease the temperature of chilled water to 6 C

Advantages: cooling capacity can be easily and quickly changed no moving parts as such it is vibration free Weight per ton of refrigerating capacity is less reliable system and maintenance cost is less. Applications: processing of cold water used in rubber mills,, distilleries, paper mills, food processing plants used in air-conditioning installations, because of the complete safety of water as refrigerant

Limitations: use of direct evaporation to produce chilled water is usually limited as tremendous volume of vapor is to be handled About twice as much heat must be removed in the condenser of steam jet per ton of refrigeration compared with the vapor compression system The system is useful for comfort air-conditioning, but it is not practically feasible for water temperature below 4 C

ICE Refrigeration System Quantity of heat required to convert one kg of ice from and at 0 C is 335 kJ/kg Therefore, ICE can be used to produce cold Applications: Food and Vegetable storage

ICE refrigeration ICE kept in small cabin at top level of insulated small container Arrangement is such that, air comes in contact with ice first , get cooled and flow downwards due to increase in density Low density air moves upwards and thus set convection currents. Thus foods, vegetables kept in trays at different levels get cooled and preserved. Cooling would continue till the ICE melts The melted water is drained out

 ICE is also used to produce refrigeration on large scale System is suitable for transport refrigeration And for food refrigeration when one dont want to invest in costly refrigeration system