New mechanisms for cryogenic solid-gas sublimation refrigeration: Basic principles and system designs

Sublimation is one phase change mechanism which usually happens under low-to-moderate temperatures and at the same time large amounts of latent heat is absorbed or released. Low temperature sublimation has been proposed in a lot of applications as one useful fast cooling/refrigeration mechanisms, such as medical cooling, food engineering, chemical synthesis, domestic cooling and many industrial sectors. In this brief chapter, the basic mechanisms of static sublimation process and sublimation two-phase flows are clarified and analyzed first, which covers the theoretical and physical problems of sublimation phase-change. Then the previous studies are classified into numerical modeling and experimental verifications. Representative refrigeration systems are also introduced and compared in this chapter, which may give useful indications for future innovations in this field. Future research focuses are also summarized and proposed in this chapter.