Kotani Y., Kansha Y., Tsutsumi A., 2013, Active Magnetic Regenerative Heat Circulator for Energy Saving in Thermal Process, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 35, 229-234.
Recently, a conceptual design of an active magnetic regenerative (AMR) heat circulator that utilizes magnetocaloric effect to self-heat recuperation technology for energy saving in thermal process has been proposed. In an AMR heat circulator, the heat of the effluent process stream is given to the ferromagnetic working material, where it is recuperated through adiabatic magnetization. All of the recuperated process stream heat is given back to the feeding process stream so that it can be circulated. In this paper, the AMR heat circulator has been evaluated in two ways 1) through a mathematical model is constructed for understanding the temperature behaviour and the energy consumption of the process stream, and 2) through a temperature-entropy diagram for understanding the theoretical energy saving limit at given conditions. It was seen from the simulation results, that the AMR heat circulator is capable of circulating the process heat in the vicinity of the Curie temperature of a magnetocaloric material with small energy consumption.
