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Refrigerators and Heat Pumps

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Refrigerators or heat pumps are heat engines operating in a reverse direction. For a refrigerator, the focus is on removing heat from a specific area, whereas, for a heat pump, the focus is on dumping heat into one particular area. A refrigerator (or heat pump) absorbs heat Qc from the cold reservoir at Kelvin temperature Tc and discards heat Qh to the hot reservoir at Kelvin temperature Th, while work W is done on the engine’s working substance.
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The first law of thermodynamics is quantitatively formulated via an equation relating the internal energy of a system, the heat exchanged by it, and the work done on it. A quantitative formulation of the second law of thermodynamics leads to defining a state function, the entropy.
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Salt particles that have dissolved in water never spontaneously come back together in solution to reform solid particles. Moreover, a gas that has expanded in a vacuum remains dispersed and never spontaneously reassembles. The unidirectional nature of these phenomena is the result of a thermodynamic state function called entropy (S). Entropy is the measure of the extent to which the energy is dispersed throughout a system, or in other words, it is proportional to the degree of disorder of a...
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The second law of thermodynamics can be stated in several different ways, and all of them can be shown to imply the others. The Clausius’ statement of the second law of thermodynamics is based on the irreversibility of spontaneous heat flow. It states that heat will not flow from the colder body to the hotter body unless some other process is involved. Additionally, as per the Kelvin’s statement, it is impossible to convert the heat from a single source into work without any other...
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The Carnot engine works between two heat reservoirs of fixed temperatures. The Carnot cycle begs the following question: Is it possible to devise a heat engine that is more efficient than a Carnot engine between two fixed temperatures? The answer lies in designing a Carnot refrigerator.
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Quantum heat engines and refrigerators: continuous devices.

Ronnie Kosloff1, Amikam Levy

  • 1Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel;

Annual Review of Physical Chemistry
|April 3, 2014
PubMed
Summary

Quantum thermodynamics describes heat engines and refrigerators using quantum systems. Optimization reveals balanced parameters for efficient power conversion and cooling, adhering to thermodynamic laws.

Area of Science:

  • Quantum thermodynamics
  • Quantum heat engines
  • Quantum refrigerators

Background:

  • Quantum thermodynamics provides a framework for analyzing quantum heat engines and refrigerators.
  • These devices operate by coupling quantum systems to multiple heat reservoirs.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the behavior and optimization of quantum heat engines and refrigerators.
  • To derive equations of motion for heat currents and power from first principles.
  • To explore the implications of thermodynamic laws, including a dynamical third law, for quantum refrigerators.

Main Methods:

  • Utilizing the quantum tricycle as a model system connected to three heat reservoirs (hot, cold, work).
  • Deriving equations of motion for heat currents and power based on first principles.

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  • Optimizing device parameters, including reservoir couplings and driving field resonance.

    • Main Results:

    • A global description of device-reservoir coupling is necessary for thermodynamic consistency.
    • Optimized devices exhibit balanced reservoir couplings and resonant driving fields.
    • Quantum refrigerators show universal behavior as the cold reservoir temperature approaches absolute zero (Tc→0).

    Conclusions:

    • The study provides a consistent framework for quantum heat engines and refrigerators.
    • Optimization leads to efficient energy conversion and cooling.
    • A dynamical third law of thermodynamics imposes constraints on the performance of quantum refrigerators at low temperatures.