On the temperature distribution in the counter flow heat exchanger with multicomponent non-azeotropic mixtures Original Research Article

The influence of mixture composition on the temperature distribution in the counter flow heat exchanger used in mixture Joule–Thomson refrigerators is investigated in this paper. A perfect heat capacity matching between the supply and the return streams can be achieved by optimizing the mixture composition. The deeper reason is that in two-phase state the latent heat makes a very important contribution in the overall heat capacity for multicomponent non-azeotropic mixtures. The theoretical results are compared with experimental data; both theoretical and experimental results agree well with each other. The results show that the temperature profile as well as the locations of the pinch points is determined by the mixture compositions. Therefore, it is possible to get a perfect temperature distribution using optimal mixture. This becomes another criterion of the optimization of mixture composition.