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Homework Statement
The oxygen contained in a thermally insulated container will be cooled down to its boiling point (-183 C), and then condensed. Thereby one uses a reverse Carnot process operating between the oxygen gas (instantaneous) temperature and the room temperature (17 C). What is the minimum amount of work that must be supplied from outside to 30.0 kg liquid oxygen to be produced if you start with oxygen at room temperature. The Enthalpy of vaporization for oxygen is ##214\cdot 10^3 J/kg## and the heat capacity can be set to ##117 J/(kg \cdot K)## in the entire range.
(The question was translated so if there's any confusion just ask!)
Homework Equations
Carnot cycle efficiency (is this true both for an heat engine and a heat pump?)
##\eta = \frac{T_1-T_2}{T_1}##
The Attempt at a Solution
##m = 30kg##
Enthalpy of vaporization:
##H = 214\cdot 10^3 J/Kg##
heat capacity
##c = 917J/(kg\cdot K)##
##T_1 = 290K##
##T_2 = 90K##
Not really sure how to even start but let's give it a try:
The energy needed to vaporize the gas should be
##E_1 = m \cdot H = 6.42 MJ##
But the efficiency for a carnot cycle operating between ##T_1## and ##T_2## would be
##\eta = 0.69##
so the work needed would be
##E_1/\eta = 9.3MJ##
The work needed to cool the gas is harder since the temperature is changing. The total energy should be
##E_2 = mc(T_2-T_1) = -5.5MJ##
And then maybe I could use something along the lines of
##dW_2 = \frac{mcdT}{\eta}##
and then
##W_2 = mT_1c\int \frac{dT}{T_1-T} = - mT_1cln(T_1-T_2)##
but really I'm clueless at this point.
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