1.

Refrigeration :-
Refrigeration is the process of removing heat from an enclosed space,
or from a substance, and moving it to a place where it is unobjectionable.
The primary purpose of refrigeration is lowering the temperature of the
enclosed space or substance and then maintaining that lower temperature.
The term cooing refers generally to any natural or artificial process by which
heat is dissipated.
The process of artificially producing extreme cold temperatures is referred to
as cryogenics.
Cold is the absence of heat, hence in order to decrease a temperature, one
"removes heat", rather than "adding cold." In order to satisfy the Second Law
of Thermodynamics, some form of work must be performed to accomplish
this.
This work is traditionally done by mechanical work but can also be done by
magnetism, laser or other means.

1.1 Methods of refrigeration:-

[A] Non cyclic refrigeration:-
In these methods, refrigeration can be accomplished by melting ice or by
subliming dry ice. These methods are used for small-scale refrigeration such as in laboratories
and workshops, or in portable coolers.
Ice owes its effectiveness as a cooling agent to its constant melting point of 0 °C (32 °F). In order
to melt, ice must absorb 333.55 kJ/kg (approx. 144 Btu/lb) of heat.
Foodstuffs maintained at this temperature or slightly above have an increased storage life. Solid
carbon dioxide, known as dry ice, is used also as a refrigerant.
Having no liquid phase at normal atmospheric pressure, it sublimes directly from the solid to
vapor phase at a temperature of -78.5 °C (-109.3 °F).
Dry ice is effective for maintaining products at low temperatures during the period of
sublimation.

[B] Cyclic refrigeration:-

This consists of a refrigeration cycle, where heat is removed from a low-temperature
space or source and rejected to a high-temperature sink with the help of external work, and its
inverse, the thermodynamic power cycle.
In the power cycle, heat is supplied from a high-temperature source to the engine, part of the heat
being used to produce work and the rest being rejected to a low-temperature sink. This satisfies
the second law of thermodynamics.
A refrigeration cycle describes the changes that take place in the refrigerant as it alternately
absorbs and rejects heat as it circulates through a refrigerator. It is also applied to HVACR work,
when describing the "process" of refrigerant flow through an HVACR unit, whether it is a
packaged or split system.
Heat naturally flows from hot to cold. Work is applied to cool a living space or storage volume
by pumping heat from a lower temperature heat source into a higher temperature heat sink.
Insulation is used to reduce the work and energy required to achieve and maintain a lower
temperature in the cooled space.
The operating principle of the refrigeration cycle was described mathematically by Sadi Carnot
in 1824 as a heat engine.
The most common types of refrigeration systems use the reverse-Rankine vapor-compression
refrigeration cycle although absorption heat pumps are used in a minority of applications.
Cyclic refrigeration can be classified as:
1. Vapor cycle, and
2. Gas cycle
Vapor cycle refrigeration can further be classified as:
1. Vapor compression refrigeration
2. Vapor absorption refrigeration

[1] Vapor-compression cycle

The vapor-compression cycle is used in most household refrigerators as well as in many
large commercial and industrial refrigeration systems.

Vapor absorption cycle

In the early years of the twentieth century, the vapor absorption cycle using water-ammonia
systems was popular and widely used but, after the development of the vapor compression cycle,
it lost much of its importance because of its low coefficient of performance (about one fifth of
that of the vapor compression cycle).
Nowadays, the vapor absorption cycle is used only where waste heat is available, where heat is
derived from solar collectors, or electricity is unavailable.
The absorption cycle is similar to the compression cycle, except for the method of raising the
pressure of the refrigerant vapor.
In the absorption system, the compressor is replaced by an absorber which dissolves the
refrigerant in a suitable liquid, a liquid pump which raises the pressure and a generator which, on
heat addition, drives off the refrigerant vapor from the high-pressure liquid.
Some work is required by the liquid pump but, for a given quantity of refrigerant, it is much
smaller than needed by the compressor in the vapor compression cycle.
In an absorption refrigerator, a suitable combination of refrigerant and absorbent is used.
The most common combinations are ammonia (refrigerant) and water (absorbent), and water
(refrigerant) and lithium bromide (absorbent).

[2] Gas cycle:-

When the working fluid is a gas that is compressed and expanded but doesn't change phase, the
refrigeration cycle is called a gas cycle.
Air is most often this working fluid. As there is no condensation and evaporation intended in a
gas cycle, components corresponding to the condenser and evaporator in a vapor compression
cycle are the hot and cold gas-to-gas heat exchangers in gas cycles.
The gas cycle is less efficient than the vapor compression cycle because the gas cycle works on
the reverse Brayton cycle instead of the reverse Rankine cycle.
As such the working fluid does not receive and reject heat at constant temperature.
In the gas cycle, the refrigeration effect is equal to the product of the specific heat of the gas and
the rise in temperature of the gas in the low temperature side.
Therefore, for the same cooling load, a gas refrigeration cycle will require a large mass flow rate
and would be bulky.
Because of their lower efficiency and larger bulk, air cycle coolers are not often used nowadays
in terrestrial cooling devices.
The air cycle machine is very common, however, on gas turbine-powered jet aircraft because
compressed air is readily available from the engines' compressor sections.
These jet aircraft's cooling and ventilation units also serve the purpose of pressurizing the
aircraft.

[c] Thermoelectric refrigeration:-

Thermoelectric cooling uses the Peltier effect to create a heat flux between the junctions of two
different types of materials. This effect is commonly used in camping and portable coolers and
for cooling electronic components and small instruments.

[D] Magnetic refrigeration:-

Magnetic refrigeration, or adiabatic demagnetization, is a cooling technology based on the
magnetocaloric effect, an intrinsic property of magnetic solids.
The refrigerant is often a paramagnetic salt, such as cerium magnesium nitrate. The active
magnetic dipoles in this case are those of the electron shells of the paramagnetic atoms.
A strong magnetic field is applied to the refrigerant, forcing its various magnetic dipoles to align
and putting these degrees of freedom of the refrigerant into a state of lowered entropy.
A heat sink then absorbs the heat released by the refrigerant due to its loss of entropy. Thermal
contact with the heat sink is then broken so that the system is insulated, and the magnetic field is
switched off.
This increases the heat capacity of the refrigerant, thus decreasing its temperature below the
temperature of the heat sink.
Because few materials exhibit the required properties at room temperature, applications have so
far been limited to cryogenics and research.

[E] Other methods

Other methods of refrigeration include the air cycle machine used in aircraft; the vortex tube
used for spot cooling, when compressed air is available; and thermoacoustic refrigeration using
sound waves in a pressurized gas to drive heat transfer and heat exchange.

[F] Unit of refrigeration

Domestic and commercial refrigerators may be rated in kJ/s, or Btu/h of cooling. Commercial
refrigerators in the US are mostly rated in tons of refrigeration, but elsewhere in kW. One ton of
refrigeration capacity can freeze one short ton of water at 0 °C (32 °F) in 24 hours. Based on
that:
Latent heat of ice (i.e., heat of fusion) = 333.55 kJ/kg ≈ 144 Btu/lb

One short ton = 2000 lb

Heat extracted = (2000)(144)/24 hr = 288000 Btu/24 hr = 12000 Btu/hr =

200 Btu/min

1 ton refrigeration = 200 Btu/min = 3.517 kJ/s = 3.517 kW

A much less common definition is: 1 tonne of refrigeration is the rate of heat removal required to
freeze a metric ton (i.e., 1000 kg) of water at 0 °C in 24 hours. Based on the heat of fusion being
333.55 kJ/kg, 1 tonne of refrigeration = 13,898 kJ/h = 3.861 kW. As can be seen, 1 tonne of
refrigeration is 10% larger than 1 ton of refrigeration.
Most residential air conditioning units range in capacity from about 1 to 5 tons of refrigeration.

2. Introduction to magnetic refrigeration:-

 Magnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology based on the
magnetocaloric effect. This technique can be used to attain extremely low temperatures
(well below 1 Kelvin), as well as the ranges used in common refrigerators, depending on the
design of the system.
The fundamental principle was suggested by Debye (1926) and Giauque (1927), and the first
working magnetic refrigerators were constructed by several groups beginning in 1933.
Magnetic refrigeration was the first method developed for cooling below about 0.3 Kelvin.

Figure.1 Schematic diagram of magnetic refrigeration

The system based on the magnetocaloric effect is shown in fig. 1. It has two rotating
cylinders containing powdered Gadolinium-a dense gray, rare earth metal and a
superconducting magnet.
Each atom of gadolium has seven (7) unpaired electrons in an intermediate shell, which gives
the element a strong magnetic moment. When a ferromagnetic material like gadolium is
placed in a magnetic field, the magnetic moments of its atoms become aligned, making the
material more ordered. But, the amount of entropy in the magnet must be conserved, so the
atoms vibrate more rapidly, raising the material temperature. Conversely, when gadolium is
taken out of the magnetic field, the material cools.
The two cylinders containing gadolium metal can be made to rotate through magnetic field
and arrangements, should be made such that, the mixture of water and ethanol is pumped
into one of the cylinders of gadolium immediately after it moves out of the magnetic field.
 The mixture cools, as it flows through the porous bed of demagnetized gadolium and then
through a heat exchanger. Next the mixture passes through the cylinder of gadolium, which is
inside the magnetic field.
The stream of mixture heats up and flows through another exchanger providing ample
refrigeration power by continuously heating one exchanger and cooling the other.
Interval, after the two cylinders of gadolium compound switch takes place and flow of
mixture is reversed. The team has developed a working system that uses two beds containing
spherical powder of Gadolium with water being used as the heat transfer fluid. The magnetic
field for such system is 5 Telsa.
Magnetic refrigeration is based on a fundamental thermodynamic property of magnetic
materials: the so-called magnetocaloric effect, which causes a temperature change if the
material is subject to an applied magnetic field under adiabatic conditions. the
magnetocaloric effect was discovered in 1881in iron by the German physicist Emil Warburg.
Usually the temperature increases when the field is applied (and decreases when the field is
removed) and the process is reversible
The magnetocaloric effect can qualitatively be understood as an interaction between the
entropy (which is a measure of the disorder) associated with the spins (magnetic moments of
the atoms) of the crystal lattice and the entropy associated with the heat motion of the atoms
in the lattice: an external magnetic field tends to order the spins, thus decreasing the magnetic
entropy, if the material is isolated from its surroundings(i.e. its entropy is constant), the
decrease must be compensated by an increase of the lattice entropy, i.e. an increase in heat
motion and therefore in temperature. The magnetocaloric effect is most pronounced in the
vicinity of a magnetic phase transition of the material, e.g. from a non-ordered
(paramagnetic) to a ferromagnetic state. A magnetocaloric material can be used as the active
element in a refrigeration apparatus. The apparatus can for instance be operated in a four step
cycle:-

(1) The magnetocaloric material is magnetized by a magnet and the temperature

increases.
(2) The material cools by giving off heat to the surroundings through a heat
exchanger.
(3) The magnetic field is removed and the temperature of the material drops further.
(4) The material takes up heat from the cold side heat exchanger (“the inside of the
refrigerator”) thus cooling it.

Such a magnetic refrigerator has a number of advantages compared to

conventional refrigerators, e.g. environmentally hazardous refrigeration gases
such as HFC (hydroflurocarbon) or ammonia are avoided, and higher efficiency
are possible.
It has been recognizes since 1920’s that magnetocaloric materials can be used for
cooling purposes. In the laboratory magnetic refrigeration using paramagnetic
salts is a standard technique for obtaining ultra low temperatures.
However, for the purpose of using magnetic refrigeration near room
temperature several problems arise magnetocaloric materials are only
active in a certain material -specific temperature range significantly
limiting the temperature range where the refrigerator should function.
The temperature change induced by the active material is only of the order
of a few degrees, which is too small for practical purposes.
To overcome this obstacle, the simple cycle illustrated above must
be modified by the use of a regenerator. By having the magnetocaloric material
act as a regenerator on the cooling fluid, the device can span a wider temperature
range. This concept, called an active magnetic regerator (AMR),was introduced
by J.A. Barclay and W.A. Steyert in the early 1980’s.Wor in particular by Ames
Laboratory(university of lowa) and astronautics Corporation in the USA have
elaborated on this idea, resulting in a number of prototype magnetic refrigerators
using metals such as pure gadolium and gadolium alloys such as the active
materials. Combining these materials with high applied magnetic fields (applied
by superconducting magnet coils), temperature spans I excess of 40 degrees may
be reached.
Magnetic refrigeration is a promising technology for energy efficient and
environmentally friendly cooling. The technology uses magnetic materials as the
active components and non-volatile fluids, e.g. water, for heat transfer. When
magnetic materials are subjected to an external magnetic field,their temperature
rises. This so-called magnetocaloric effect is thermodynamically reversible ,which
means that the efficiency of a cooling ycle based on this may be as much as 60%
grater than for conventional compressor based refrigeration systems.
Magnetic refrigeration is seen as an environmentally friendly alternative to
conventional vapor-cycle refrigeration. And as it eliminates the need for the most
inefficient part of today’s refrigerators, the compressors, it should save costs. New
materials described in this issue may bring practical magnetocaloric cooling a step
closer large magnetic entropy changes has been found to occur in MnFeP 0.45As0.55
at room temperature, making it an attractive candidate for commercial application
in magnetic refrigeration.
3. Magnetocaloric effect