Volume 42, Issue 3 -

We give a first review of experimental results for a phenomenon little explored in the literature, namely thermal osmosis or thermo-osmosis. Such systems are now getting increased attention because of their ability to use waste heat for separation purposes. We show that this volume transport of a solution or a pure liquid caused by a temperature difference across a membrane can be understood as a property of the membrane system, i. e. the membrane with its adjacent solutions. We present experimental values found in the literature of thermo-osmotic coefficients of neutral and hydrophobic as well as charged and hydrophilic membranes, with water and other permeant fluids as well as electrolyte solutions. We propose that the coefficient can be qualitatively explained by a formula that contains the entropy of adsorption of permeant into the membrane, the hydraulic permeability, and a factor that depends on the interface resistance to heat transfer. A variation in the entropy of adsorption with hydrophobic/hydrophilic membranes and structure breaking/structure making cations could then explain the sign of the permeant flux. Systematic experiments in the field are lacking and we propose an experimental program to mend this situation.

Transport properties in gases are significantly affected by temperature. In previous works it has been shown that when the thermal agitation in a gas is sufficient for relativistic effects to become relevant, heat dissipation is driven not solely by a temperature gradient but also by other vector forces. In the case of relativistic charged fluids, a heat flux is driven by an electrostatic field even in the single species case . The present work generalizes such result by considering also a magnetic field in an arbitrary reference frame. The corresponding constitutive equation is explicitly obtained showing that both electric and magnetic forces contribute to thermal dissipation. This result may lead to relevant effects in plasma dynamics.

In this paper, the seeming inconsistency highlighted by Fabrizio and Lazzari (Stability and second law of thermodynamics in dual-phase-lag heat conduction, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 74 (2014), 484–489) and Quintanilla and Racke (A note on stability of dual-phase-lag heat conduction, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 49 (2007), 1209–1213) for a thermoelastic material, between the thermodynamic restrictions and the stability conditions is studied. Actually, we show as these results are due to the use of different formulations of the thermodynamic principles, which are not always equivalent. So that, we prove by the model considered in the paper that these two formulations do not lead to the same restrictions on the constitutive equations. This analysis allowed us to restore the compatibility by an appropriate and wide representation of the Second Law.

We introduce a multi-parameter combined objective function of heat engines under the strong coupling and symmetry condition and derive the universal expression of the optimization efficiency. The results obtained show that the optimization efficiency derived from the multi-parameter combined objective function include a variety of optimization efficiencies, such as the efficiency at the maximum power, efficiency at the maximum efficiency-power state, efficiency at the maximum ecological or unified trade-off function, and Carnot efficiency. It is further explained that these results are also suitable for the endoreversible cycle model of the Carnot heat engines operating between two heat reservoirs.

We have analyzed entropy production in chemically reacting systems and extended previous results to the two limiting cases of ideal reactors, namely continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) and plug flow reactor (PFR). We have found upper and lower bounds for the entropy production in isothermal systems and given expressions for non-isothermal operation and analyzed the influence of pressure and temperature in entropy generation minimization in reactors with a fixed volume and production. We also give a graphical picture of entropy production in chemical reactions subject to constant volume, which allows us to easily assess different options. We show that by dividing a reactor into two smaller ones, operating at different temperatures, the entropy production is lowered, going as near as 48 % less in the case of a CSTR and PFR in series, and reaching 58 % with two CSTR. Finally, we study the optimal pressure and temperature for a single isothermal PFR, taking into account the irreversibility introduced by a compressor and a heat exchanger, decreasing the entropy generation by as much as 30 %.

Abstract: The nonlinear dissipation heat devices are proposed by means of generalizing the low-dissipation heat devices to the quadratic order case. The dimensionless formulas of the output (input) power and the efficiency (coefficient of performance) for the nonlinear dissipation heat engines (refrigerators) are derived in terms of characteristic parameters for heat devices and the dimensional analysis. Based on the trade-off criterion, the optimal performance of the nonlinear dissipation heat devices is discussed in depth, and some system-specific properties for the nonlinear dissipation heat devices under the trade-off optimization are also uncovered. Our results may provide practical insight for designing actual heat engines and refrigerators.

In this paper we determine the physical conditions ensuring that the efficiency of a thermoelectric nanowire with two temperatures is optimal. We consider the case in which the entropy for unitary volume depends on the equilibrium variables only, and the case in which such a quantity depends on the dissipative fluxes, too. We prove that in these two different situations the conditions of optimal efficiency are different.