Thermal Performance of Eco-Friendly Thermosyphon for Snow Melting and Anti-icing

Snow melting and anti-icing on the roads are crucial during the winter season. Conventional methods such as de-icing agents and electric heatings exhibit great challenges to fire hazards, environmental pollution, and accelerated corrosion of roads and vehicles. The corresponding research has been conducted on applying geothermal thermosyphon utilizing geothermal energy as a heat source for snow melting and anti-icing on roads. However, working fluids such as ammonia, commonly used in geothermal thermosyphons, can potentially pose significant toxicity to human beings in the event of leakage or contribute to global warming. In response to these concerns, acetone can be chosen as an alternative working fluid, and a lab-scale geothermal thermosyphon was fabricated for experimental validation. Experimental heat flux data of the condenser were compared with the calculated values obtained using the equation for heat flux provided in the 2019 ASHRAE Handbook, which is required for snow melting and anti-icing. The experiments confirmed that the geothermal thermosyphon can effectively melt road snow and anti-icing using acetone as a working fluid. The experiments were conducted by varying the filling ratio of working fluids to compare the thermal performance of the geothermal thermosyphon. It was determined that acetone needs to be charged at a filling ratio of 75% or higher for optimal thermal performance of the geothermal thermosyphons.