Analytical modeling of desublimation of a phase change material (PCM) in a porous medium with temperature-dependent volumetric heat sink and convection due to air-mixed vapor

Abstract

The desublimation phase change heat and mass transfer process in a porous medium occurs during the conversion of vapor into solid form, which has several applications in chemical deposition and industrial coating. For economic feasibility, reducing the operating time of the conventional desublimation technique is of much interest. Toward this goal, current work presents a mathematical model for desublimation that accounts for a volumetric heat sink connected with temperature. A linear profile of the volumetric heat sink varying with temperature is modeled within the frozen region. Further, the rate of water vaporization (with mixed air) produces a convective term, which is also accounted for in the frozen region. Despite previous studies on desublimation phase change process, there is still insufficient mathematical modeling of this particular phenomena. The solution to the governing set of dimensionless partial differential equations is obtained analytically by employing the space-time transformation. Results indicate that the rate of desublimation process becomes faster with increasing the strength of the volumetric heat sink, which results in the reduction of the total operating time to desublimate of a phase change material. Higher values of the dimensionless temperature parameters also accelerate the desublimation process. On the other hand, a larger value of the convective term is found to slow down the desublimation process. The dimensionless moisture concentration profile in the vapor region increases with increasing the value of the Luikov number. Observations from this study are expected to aid in the fundamental design of processes including industrial coating, preservation of biological products, and evaporative deposition where desublimation plays a key role.

Keywords:

• Desublimation front
• heat and mass transfer
• Luikov number
• mixed air–vapor convection
• PCM
• temperature-dependent volumetric heat sink

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