Check into RV absorption units and Robur Corp(Ammonia AC) study them and think all over again.

 

Thank you Terry. I looked into RV stuff but found them a bit more complicated for my needs/capacity. Plus wanted to avoid dealing with explosive
hydrogen. Did a brief search on Robocorp and nothing seems to be clearly explained on the refrigeration bit (at least not to the level of detail of
understanding for an average Joe like me). Could you please tell if my idea would work in the first place, if yes, then how exactly to achieve with fairly
standard (if needed ammonia refrigeration parts) hardware/tools.

I tried welding two stainless steel threaded pipes just to test bruteforce liquefication of ammonia with CaCl2 and got them welded but the joints leaked under pressure
Tried only Teflon (no welding) with above setup and it leaded again

Thanks for your help.

 

Your ambitious. What are your goals with this device?

 

Thank you hvacker. When you say "you are ambitious" does that mean my idea wont work/is difficult to implement for average Joe like me?
My goal is to make Ice and/or use as a small personal AC. Where I am, heat is cheaper than electricity and thermal refrigeration is not available in small scale.
So trying to device one myself - instead of storing compressed ammonia - thought of storing it within CaCl2 (no pressure, minimum risk) and release/it compress it with heat, only when needed.

So it would help to know:
1) If my idea would work
2) How exactly do I implement the compression, expansion tubes/valves (without hydrogen as I mentioned to Terry above)

Thanks again.

Ram

 

Thank you hvacker. When you say "you are ambitious" does that mean my idea wont work/is difficult to implement for average Joe like me?
My goal is to make Ice and/or use as a small personal AC. Where I am, heat is cheaper than electricity and thermal refrigeration is not available in small scale.
So trying to device one myself - instead of storing compressed ammonia - thought of storing it within CaCl2 (no pressure, minimum risk) and release/it compress it with heat, only when needed.

So it would help to know:
1) If my idea would work
2) How exactly do I implement the compression, expansion tubes/valves (without hydrogen as I mentioned to Terry above)

Thanks again.



Ram

Being ambitious I meant most wouldn't take on a project like this.
I have no idea if the device would work or not. In our field we deal with a minimum amount of chemistry except for those who work with absorbents.

Ammonia equipment was used more in the 60's than it is now in the US.
I think I know someone that might chime in.
.

 

Ah I see. Ok. True mostly here people seem to deal with commercial/established refrigeration processes/machines than such a radically different one. Let me wait to see if anyone has anything to add. For now shall continue with my R&D. Thanks

 

you might want to look into Servel Refrigerators.

I have a circa 1955/1960 Servel Ammonia Absorption Refrigerator that is propane fired. This thing works like a champ. I can freeze water inside of 8 hours of firing it up.

Servel is still in business, as far as I know. But they stopped using Ammonia a long-long time ago.

now you got me all interested in this. So i found this website:

http://vintageservelrefrigerators.8k.com/HowItWorks.html

IDK if this will help you out or not, but it's a shot

Good luck, have fun

 

No, I don't think he's looking to buy anything. It seems to me he wants to make a refer system
to use no hydrogen and if a calcium would work as an absorbent.
I like the idea of outside the box, I just don't have the chemistry to tell him y/n on the idea.

I do think I know he's not in the market to buy anything, He wants to build something.
So anyone know anyone to refer this or should we encourage him to find smarter people?

 

Thanks hvacker, yes you are correct in understanding what I am looking at . At this point (after some more homework and talking to Ammonia refrigeration guys) - I want to know if how if it will work and what valves part I need to use if yes (ammonia refrigeration guys only know standard refrigeration stuff).
Let me see where this leads.

BTW using this window - could you tell how easy difficult to build a dry ice making refrigerator (Co2 freezes at -78 degree C/-110 F in your language. Will a single I have few questions:
1) Will single stage compressor be enough
2) which refrigerant (based on list of refrigerants in Wikipedia - am not allowed to post the actual link as am new) R23 and R50 seem to be the common refrigerants with lower boiling points that might fit technically
3) Can refrigerants and compressors be interchanged easily (say one working with R134a can it work with R23?)
4) Last qn - How two compressors and connected (For lower temperatures this seems to be one method) - when they are connected is it jus the condenser of one is cooled by the evaporator of other or is it that the refrigerant is looped two flow into both?

Sorry for the flurry am enthusiastic and since you are helpful asking these.

Than

 

Thanks Jmac for trying to help. I did look at such set up and they use hydrogen and water and can work continuously. I want to avoid all those as I have limited
knowledge/tools and want to work with common parts. I know brute force can work (connect two pipes with a bend flange type connector (all ammonia refrigeration parts- can add a manual valve too if needed) - one tube holds CaCl2 and ammonia and heat drives the ammonia to the second tube and recombines CaCl2 after the first tube is cooled - freezing the second tube in the process. But since Ammonia will be staying as a liquid and under pressure most of the times, I am hesitant to use this and trying to see if less brutal stuff that I mentioned in my post above will work.

 

Oops just noticed. One small correction to your understanding - CaCl2 does absorb ammonia almost in equal weight - this is well known. Heat can separate the ammonia and the resulting gas gets compressed to a liquid in a confined space - this is well known too (icyball refrigerator works in a similar method but water is used instead of CaCl2). What I am trying to see/achieve is when the ammonia is released as a gas via heat compress it in a tube and release via a expansion valve - So that ammonia is converted to liquid and back to gas immediately - reducing the risk of storing it as a liquid in huge quantities. So two storage tanks/heat play the role of the compressor in traditional refrigeration. Hope this helps.

Thanks

 

Ramanathan, I don't mean to be a kill joy, but you're asking this community to provide you keys to your solution within your constraints for free. The technology you want exists for near a century, but does require a significant understanding of thermodynamics, chemistry, materials, piping, code requirements (ammonia is flammable), etc. I suggest you start with the basics.

Like others have noted, a better path is the RV route. We have a perfectly fine lithium bromide based RV absorption refrigerator sitting in a travel trailer whose floor rotted out and is effectively a carcass. A new RV refrigerator costs north of a grand, but you'll likely find a rotting travel trailer for the effort of carting it off.

 

Haha Thanks Throrope - you are partly right. A couple of things though:
Here in India there is no such RV stuff. At a commercial level things are there but too big/costly for my needs. Plus I could do the beaten track of compressor and some less/low problematic say R134a (in the worst case I may still do that ). But wanted to try a new route for the joy of building something. Thanks for your inputs still.

 

This sounds completely feasible, but it appears that you may need to use steel instead of copper to avoid corrosion problems.

With some steel piping, a gas gauge and some elbow grease, this engineer got it working in modern times -- 1999. crosleyautoclub.com/IcyBall/HomeBuilt/HomeBuilt . html

I've included the PDF in case that link goes down for some reason.
See this PDF for the working DIY build. Note the high PSI, and the neat way to store the cooling cycle for later. View attachment Home Built IcyBall.pdf

 

AH yes, and this is a good PDF of the history of the invention.
View attachment Crosley IcyBall.pdf

And link :

crosleyautoclub.com/IcyBall/crosley_icyball.html

 

AH yes, and this is a good PDF of the history of the invention.
View attachment 826629

And link :

crosleyautoclub.com/IcyBall/crosley_icyball.html

Just like was done with the discovery that ammonia can condense. Wasn't that Faraday and his test tube.

 

And this

too ..

 

re:

Hmm, here's a nice inexpensive, low presure way to make ammonia too. Could come in handy if you need to make it. View attachment Ammonia—a renewable fuel made from sun, air, and water—could power the globe without carbon _ Sc.pdf

 

Most of the early refrigerants ( ammonia, sulfur DI-oxide ) had a problem of being really toxic.
That was the beauty of Freons (freezones, freezeone, freeon ain't free)
There's a scramble now for what refrigerant will become the next one that might last.