Study on performances of heat-oxygen coupling device for high-altitude environments

The safety of high-altitude environments is defined by temperature, humidity and oxygen concentration. This paper proposed a Heat and Oxygen Unit Pump (HOUP) system, and introduced its design principles, experi-mental apparatus and testing results in detail. Moreover, it analyzed the parameters of heat produced, air supply temperature, concentration of produced oxygen, and the temperature of air compressor, then compared the energy consumption, COP value, power and the HOEI (Heat and Oxygen Economic Index) value, a compre-hensive economic benefit index designed by economic principles, when the oxygen production system and the heat production system operated independently or jointly. The preliminary research results showed that the HOUP system could fully utilize the afterheat of the air compressor, increased the produced heat by 5.5%-24.5% and the COP value by 21.4% compared with the traditional heat pump system. The HOUP system reduced energy consumption by 5.3%-14.9% for entire system, by 5.6%-31.1% for heat and by 4.7%-8.4% for oxygen pro-duction. Furthermore, HOUP system's HOEI was 455-972 under the conditions of oxygen production flow of 15-10SLM and room temperature of 24 degrees C-30 degrees C, i.e., a 455-972-fold economic benefit could be gained.