In view of the ozone depletion and global warming effects of CFCs, environments friendly and energy efficient refrigeration and heat pump technologies have assumed a greater importance. It is generally recognized that though the replacement of the conventional working fluids with the new fluids somewhat alleviate the problem of ozone depletion; many other technical and economic problems remain unsolved. Hence studies on alternate technologies for cooling and heating are carried out in which the metal hydrides systems are found very interesting and promising. Several studies on heat operated metal hydride cooling and heating systems have established the technical feasibility of such systems but the economic viability for cooling and heating is yet to be established.
The concept of compressor driven metal hydride cooling and heating systems is not very new and these systems were first conceptualized in 1975 by Wolf, and a US patent for the basic concept was granted in 1977. But at that time as the effects of CFCs and HCFCs on ozone depletion was not understood fully, and hence there was no great motivation to try alternate technologies. .
After Montreal Protocol (Mandatory replacement of CFCs and HCFCs) several alternatives which were abandoned once upon a time were taken up again. In addition, the in depth research carried out in the area of heat operated metal hydride systems, has taken the possibilities of designing efficient compressor driven metal hydride systems. Recently work carried out has shown that with proper design and optimization the compression based metal hydride systems can compete or even exceed the performance of the conventional vapor compression systems.
Miedema and co-workers developed a very successful model for the enthalpy of formation ÄH of binary inter-metallic alloys with a primary focus on materials in which at least one of the elements is a transition metal.
Dutch genre painting excelled in the seventeenth century, with artists turning their attentions away from more noble or celestial scenes to ones relating to every day life. Indeed, the works produced serve as an important historical documentation of life at the time, but in addition to this, artists...
