16-03-2017, 02:35 PM
The refrigerator works by creating a vacuum in a 2-chamber system to drive a thermodynamic reaction (boiling methanol) at room temperature. The drop in methanol vapor pressure causes methanol to boil. To do this, methanol must capture the heat of a system (the inside of the refrigerator). After only about 10 minutes of pedaling, the valve to the vacuum pump can be turned off, and the line of zeolite vessel open. The zeolite are common absorbers based on aluminum silicates and swell up to 30% of their mass with water. The zeolite then absorbs the vapor produced by the boiling of the methanol and for the liquid methanol to remain in equilibrium with the vapor phase; It should continue boiling (even for one day). In general, constant temperatures of 0-6 Celsius can be reached for 1 day with only 10min pedaling. Now this is a real way to freshen up for cheap. Even ice cubes can be made and one advantage of this system is that the hotter it is outside, the colder it can be generated.
Concept:
When we pump the gases from the water box in the refrigerator by rowing a bicycle, we create a low pressure area inside the box, because of this low pressure, the water starts to evaporate and for that evaporation it needs heat from the environment that is our refrigerator This way our refrigerator cools. The steam is generated in the evaporation process that was later absorbed by the zeolite as shown in the video. The vapor absorption is a property of the zeolite so we use it in this experiment.
