Metal plateau slope

There are two basic cycles for heat pump operation conventional (15) and temperature upgrading (3, J/[). It is convenient to visualize the operation of these cycles by following the changes in pressure and temperature of each alloy on a Van t Hoff plot. For ease of narration, these curves are idealized. Many engineering properties of metal hydrides must be considered in a detailed explanation (e.g., hysteresis, plateau slope, cyclic stability, etc.). The two cycles are shown in Figure 17. 

The plateau region on the PCX cnrves in Fig. 2.43a is very flat, showing only a minimal slope (Sect. 1.4.1). However, each absorption-desorption pair of the PCX curves clearly exhibits a pressure hysteresis. This means that the pressure needed for absorption (hydride formation), is always greater than that of hydride decomposition, p. The cause of pressure hysteresis in metal hydride systems is not fnlly nnderstood. A number of models that attempted to explain this phenomenon... 

In many cases a sloping plateau appears, possibly due to different equilibrium pressure lattice expansions, relaxation of residual forces to relieve the stress in the metal matrix are attributed to this distinctive feature of metal hydride systems as shown in Fig. 12.1(a), the slope of the plateau has been defined as dlnpd/dhi(H/M). 

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