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by londons_explore
1875 days ago
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"isothermal" is the reason this system is more efficient right? But is it the theoretically most efficient way to compress air? Is there a (theoretical) way to compress the air adiabatic'ly (letting it heat up as you squeeze it), and do better overall? |
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So, if you just want to reach a certain pressure regardless of temperature, you will put in less energy with adiabatic compression, because all the energy you put into the gas stays there. However, in many gas compression applications, the gas is not going to stay hot, but will cool to something closer to the environmental temperature before being used. For these cases, then the hot gas is going to lose some of that energy to the environment. If you compress it isothermally instead of adiabatically, then it still loses heat energy to the environment, but it loses it as it is being compressed rather than after the compression is done. This requires less work.
So, in short, if you want hot compressed gas (like a diesel engine) go adiabatic, but if you want room-temperature compressed gas (like compressed air which sits in a container), go isothermal.