Experimental study on a thermoacoustic combined cooling and power technology for natural gas liquefaction

This paper is focused on a novel heat-driven thermoacoustic combined cooling and power system operating at liquefied natural gas temperature. In this configuration, a linear motor phase adjuster of the refrigerator is used to convert the expansion work to electricity. The experiment work on the cooling and power unit at 110 K is presented. According to the experiment results, a cooling capacity of 503 W at 110 K with a relative Carnot efficiency of 32.2%, an electric power of 665 W and a total exergy efficiency of 58% were achieved. The experimental results show that this new technology can not only obtain a good cooling capacity comparable to the traditional thermoacoustic refrigerators, but also recover a considerable amount of electric power. Additionally, the impedance characteristics of the unit are also studied for the further coupling investigation with the thermoacoustic heat engine. This work shows a good prospect for off-grid natural gas liquefaction application.