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Re:Heat Pumps Work Miracles by semi-extrinsic on Thursday February 28, 2019 @12:54PM (#19273347)
In cooling mode, heat pumps work by heating the outside of the garage/house. To do this, the refrigerant has to be warmer than outside temperature. For a given fluid, you get an upper limit temperature like you mention, where efficiency drops to zero. This is because the fluid has a critical point, as you approach critical temperature the achievable enthalpy change in the condenser drops to zero.
Re:Heat Pumps Work Miracles by Phenomenit on Thursday February 28, 2019 @01:05PM (#19273451)
Is there fluids that are optimized for more extreme climate on both ends?
Re:Heat Pumps Work Miracles by semi-extrinsic on Thursday February 28, 2019 @01:20PM (#19273606)
For industrial use, there's heat pumps optimized for pretty much any temperature range you can think of. We have one in the lab at work that goes from 40 C to 130 C, another (cascade unit) that goes down to -200 C, etc. But price goes way up and efficiency way down as you increase the range.
Re:Heat Pumps Work Miracles by FiatLuxDave on Thursday February 28, 2019 @02:29PM (#19274284)
Can you please direct me to a supplier for the kind of heat pumps you have in your lab? I've been trying to source a high temperature heat pump for an experiment of mine, and I haven't really found what I am looking for yet. I'd appreciate any leads you could give me.
Re:Heat Pumps Work Miracles by semi-extrinsic on Thursday February 28, 2019 @06:43PM (#19276582)
I'm afraid the high temperature one is a custom built unit, actually for an R&D project of some colleagues of mine that aims to demonstrate the efficiency and reliability for high temperature applications. You can email me to discuss, if you want.