Experimental Thermal Study of Ice Slurry Production System Equipped With Direct Contact Heat Exchanger and Spiral Nozzle

For the direct contact ice slurry production system, the obstacles of ice blockage in the nozzle, enormous refrigerant charge, and refrigerant-water separation restrict its commercial application. In this paper, a novel direct contact ice slurry production system is proposed to overcome these obstacles. In this novel system, the horizontal PVC pipe with the spiral nozzle is designed as a direct contact ice slurry generator to avoid ice blockage in the nozzle. The two-phase RC318 is utilized as the system refrigerant. In order to investigate the ice production performance of this novel system, the effects of compressor rotational speed, internal water flowrate, and initial system pressure on ice production performance are experimentally studied, and a lump model is established. The results show that the ice production performance is mainly affected by the compressor rotational speed, but scarcely affected by the internal water flowrate. However, large ice blocks are formed at small internal water flowrate. Besides, the lump model is considered to be able to predict the water temperature. Furthermore, the sinking of the liquid refrigerant exits under the higher initial system pressure, but it can be avoided by reducing the initial system pressure.