ABSTRACT
To meet Ottawa’s net-zero emissions target by 2050, it is imperative for the mining industry to move towards sustainable energy sources. Spray freezing has been demonstrated to be an effective substitute for the fossil fuels to supplement the heating needs of the mines operating in the sub-arctic climates. This study presents a reduced-order theoretical-statistical model that captures the freezing process of a droplet accurately. A novel droplet freezing model, using the principles of statistical thermodynamics, is developed that takes into account the supercooling, crystallization, equilibrium freezing and solid subcooling stages. The model also considers evaporation, sublimation and radiation. The theoretical model for a single droplet is further extended to a spray configuration to compute the thermodynamics of the process on a system scale. Results indicate that the model robustly predicts the thermal characteristics of the spray freezing potential for mine heating. The heat rate as predicted by the model compares to within 5 % of the field data.
