Comparative Exergetic Analysis of Joule-Thomson Liquefiers.

The Joule-Thomson microliquefiers are very reliable and noiseless cryocoolers, specially well fitted for cryostating small electronic devices, IR detectors or cryosurgical probes. Their essential drawback is low thermodynamic efficiency imposing high supply gas pressure, usually above 10 MPa. An exergetic analysis of the microliquefier has been performed and exergy-loss sources identified. Some of the losses can be avoided if a pure gas is replaced with a proper gas mixture and in result the supply gas pressure can be lowered significantly. The efficiencies and working parameters of Joule-Thomson microliquefier fed with pure N2 and the mixtures N2 - CH4 and N2 - R13 have been estimated and measured. The mixture properties have been calculated using the Peng-Robinson equation of state. The possibility to use a liquid-solid phase transition in a cooling-power “on-off” control loop has been observed. © 2004 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]