Basic design of hydrogen liquefier precooled by cryogenic refirgerator

극저온냉동기 예냉 수소액화기의 기초설계

A thermodynamic cycle analysis is performed for refrigerator-precooled Linde-Hampson hydrogen liquefiers, including catalysts for the ortho-to-para(o-p) conversion. three different configurations of the liquefying system, depending upon the method of the o-p conversion, are selected for the analysis. After some simple and justifiable models are introduced, a general analysis program to predict the liquid yield and the figure of merit(FOM) is developed with incorporating the commercial computer code for the hydrogen properties. The discussion is focused on the effect of the two primary design parameters-the precooling temperature and the high pressrure of hydrogen. When the precooling temperature is in the range between 45 and 60 K, the optimal high pressure for the maximal liquid yield is found to be in the range between 100 to 140 bar, regardless of the o-p conversion. However, the FOM can be maximized at slightly smaller values of high pressures. It is remarkable to observe that the lower precooling temperatures are favorable since both the liquid yield and the FOM can be obtained without compressing hygrogen to extremely high pressures.