March 5, 2013

Thermodynamics of a Moka pot

A thermodynamic analysis of various components of a Moka pot, a stove top espresso machine, is presented.

1.1

Useful references to read

These links are also available in the announcement. 1. Wikipedias entry on espresso1 2. Wikipedias entry on the Moka pot2 3. The oatmeal makes light of coee3 4. Brewing at home with a Moka pot. This link is particularly appetizing!
4

1.2

Brief background

The main dierence between espresso and drip coee is the brewing time. Drip coee has hot water in contact with coee powder for a longer duration than espresso. Also, espresso is brewed by forcing really hot water at pressures of 10-15 atmospheres through coee powder. Drip coee is brewed at atmospheric pressure. Espresso is the base for many coee drinks and has gained signicant momentum since the third wave coee movement. The third wave of coee suggests that coee is not just a commodity anymore like petroleum or wheat but is an artisan food stu like wine or caviar. The rst notable espresso machine was made in 1884. Occasionally, espresso is synonymous with coee brewed with a certain kind of espresso bean at pressures higher than atmospheric. Espresso beans can be regular beans that are roasted for a longer period of time an italian or a french roast and they have an oily feel. The type of roast determines the color, avor and acidity. The espresso maker you will pass around in class, is called the Moka pot or the mucca pot which is an Italian pun on the word for cow, a common barnyard animal. This is dierent from the espresso machines that baristas have in cafes. The Moka pot yields espresso at pressures that are much lower than 10-15 bars. So a Moka pot is a stove top espresso maker that irreversibly makes espresso from hot water and ground coee. It is made of three components, as shown in gure 1, that we shall analyse with the rst law of thermodynamics. (A) The bottom chamber (B) The basket (C) The collection chamber
1 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot 3 http://theoatmeal.com/comics/coee 4 http://www.gimmecoee.com/galleries/brewing_at_home_part_1_moka_po/

1.3 Bottom chamber

March 5, 2013

Figure 1: Schematic of a Moka Pot from Wikimedia

1.3

Bottom chamber

In my Moka pot, 120[mL] of water is poured in and the top two sections are screwed in (with ground coee powder in the middle basket section) while avoiding cross threading. Cross threading can damage the Moka pot and also lead to steam leakages from the sides resulting in imperfect extraction of espresso. When the moka pot is plate on a hot stove plate, heat is transferred to the water. Since the top compartments are screwed on tight, the water in the bottom chamber is compressed by both atmospheric pressure and the pressure exerted by the force times area of the top two portions (including the coee powder). Clearly, the saturation temperaure will be higher than if the water was under atmospheric pressure only. Ideally in the bottom chamber, we will have saturated liquid water at a high temperature and high pressure (more than atmospheric pressure). The temperature of the water, T, which is given by equation 1

P = Patm + Pb,c,coee = Patm + Wb,c,coee Aa P = Patm + mb,c, coee gAa T = Tsat @P

(1)

We say ideally since the bottom chamber has rough walls that can act as nucleation sites for boiling and phase change from saturated liquid water to liquid-vapor mixture (look up Heterogeneous and homogeneous nucleation if you are interested). Thermodynamic analysis of bottom chamber 1. Closed system 2. No useful work extracted 3. Heat transfer to the water and out of the bottom section to the atmosphere 4. Is this steady or unsteady? (Could be either)

1.4 The basket - central section

March 5, 2013

In my opinion, the pressure builds continuously and this is perhaps an unsteady/transient problem:
X $0 B0 W m(h1 h $ dE = Q + $$$$$2 ) dE T mC QLoss dt t
This is the total heat exchange

dE mC(T Tt=0 ) dt t t0

QLoss
Various modes

(2)

In equation 2, why do you think we have a T /t expression? Why is the change in temperature, T a function of time?

1.4

The basket - central section

In my moka pot, 50[mL] of coee, whose density is roughly 500[kg/m3 ] is added to the basket. When the hot compressed water/hot saturated water is pressed through the basket due to a build up of vapor pressure that exceeds P from equation 1, the basket starts lling with water. The extraction of espresso occurs here with the saturation of the ground coee with hot water. This is actually a problem of percolation physics that is not dealt with in thermodynamics/MEEM2200. It is a fair assumption that the pressure in the basket is lower than the pressure in the bottom chamber. The temperature is also lower. This change in pressure and temperature give rise to enthalpy and heat transfer changes. Why enthalpy? Because the basket has an inlet and outlet and hence is a ow problem. The enthalpy at the inlet of the basket (from the bottom) would be dierent from the enthalpy at the exit of the basket (leading to the collection chamber). Thermodynamic analysis of the basket 1. Open system 2. No useful work 3. Heat transfer to the atmosphere by conduction, convection, radiation. 4. Steady state occurs when the basket is fully lled with water. When steady state occurs, water percolates into the top section

b & dE &

B0 W = Q +

m(h1 h2 )
Flow enthalpy change

(3)

Steady state occurs eventually

1.5 The collection chamber

March 5, 2013

1.5

The collection chamber

This is the nal stage of the espresso preparation process and espresso collects in this chamber. The espresso ows from the basket to the collector. At the exit, the hot espresso is still at high pressure and temperature (as compared to the outside atmospheric conditions). This hot espresso comes in contact with atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature. This results in a phase change the eventual product is a liquid vapor mixture mostly composed of liquid (low value of quality, x. NOT low quality espresso!!!). Thermodynamic analysis of the collection chamber 1. Open system 2. No useful work. 3. Heat transfer: latent heat from phase change, heat transfer to the atmosphere. 4. Steady state occurs when the basket is fully lled with water. When steady state occurs, water percolates into the top section 5. May be viewed as two sets of transient problems (equations 4 and 5) Transient problem for the spout in the collection chamber 0
B0 W = Q + m(h1 h2 )

b & dE &

(4)

Steady state occurs eventually

Transient problem of mass accumulation in the chamber as the espresso collects dm = m1 m2 dt Where, m2 = 0 No mass ows... it only accumulates

(5)

1.6

Things to ponder

What did you note about the entire process of making espresso? What are the implicit assumptions made? Can you plot all the states on a P v or a T v diagram? Do you think most processes in the kitchen are transient or steady-state? Are you going to stick to drip coee and forego espresso drinks?

March 5, 2013

2
2.1

Salting a highway: freezing point depression, colligative properties

Useful references to read

These links are also available in the announcement. 1. Wikipedias entry on freezing point depression5 2. Why does salt melt ice (JAVA APPLET)6 3. how can freezing point depression be explained with free energies7

2.2

Salting a highway

At the freezing point, ice and water coexist. The tendency of the ice to melt is exactly counteracted by the tendency of water to freeze. So, in other words, two events occur simultaneously when water and ice are in contact with each other: 1. The ice melts and converts to liquid water. 2. The water freezes and sets into solid ice. This is called a thermodynamic equilibrium or just a dynamic equilibrium. This dynamic equilibrium can be easily upset by the addition of impurities. When salt is sprinkled on icy roads or highways or when ethylene glycol (antifreeze) is added to the water in a car radiator, what we are doing is ensuring that this dynamic equilibrium of ice water is upset. This upsetting of the applecart, so to speak, depresses the freezing point. In other words, lower temperature are required to freeze the water. There is some chemistry behind this that is described in the java applet provided in the section 2.1. When salt is added to a mixture of ice and water, the salt (NaCl) molecules break down (dissociate) into Na+ and Cl ions and latch on the water molecules in the liquid phase forming a weak solution of NaOH and HCl (sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid). What is important here is that since the NaCl molecules are larger in size than the water molecules, the NaCl molecules are not able to squeeze into the lattice structure of ice. In other words, the NaCl molecules dont enter the solid state. They actually cause an interference due to their dissociation and size. This interference has the eect of not allowing liquid water molecules to enter the solid ice state. So because of the NaCl interference, the thermodynamic equilibrium is upset and the dynamic of melting freezing is converted only to melting. So the ice still melts to enter the liquid water state but liquid water does not freeze. This is the reason, when salt is sprinkled on roads or highways, the ice melts. After the addition of salt, a further reduction of temperature is necessary to coax the water molecules
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freezing-point_depression http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/why-salt-melts-ice.shtml 7 http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/thermo-explanation-of-freezingpointdepression.shtml
6 5

2.3 How do I use this property to cool my drink?

March 5, 2013

into the frozen ice state. This depression of freezing point is directly proportional to the amount of salt added. In chemical thermodynamics, this is called a colligative property. Colligative properties are properties of solutions that depend upon the ratio of the number of solute particles to the number of solvent molecules in a solution. 2.2.1 Freezing point depression in nature

Freezing-point depression is used by some organisms that live in extreme cold. Such creatures have evolved means through which they can produce high concentration of various compounds such as sorbitol and glycerol. This elevated concentration of solute decreases the freezing point of the water inside them, preventing the organism from freezing solid even as the water around them freezes, or the air around them is very cold.

2.3

How do I use this property to cool my drink?

We have established that adding salt to water makes it freeze at a lower temperature. This fact is being used in actually two dierent ways in the two scenarios we mention. Dissolving sodium chloride in water is slighly endothermic (has a cooling eect since dissociation of NaCl removes energy from water), but this eect is small and to the best of my knowledge isnt important in the drink cooling process. Putting salt on the highway is quite straightforward: we dont want ice to form, so we put salt in the water to prevent that. This doesnt just change the amount of time it takes ice to form, it actually completely prevents ice from forming, unless the temperature gets so low that the water can freeze even with salt in it. Cooling your drink is a bit more complicated, because in this case the rate at which things happen is important. You dont want your drink to be less than 0[C] because it would freeze; instead you want to cool it down to a few degrees Celsius nice and quickly. The rate at which it cools depends on two things: the temperature of its surroundings (the colder the better) and the heat conductivity between the drink and the surroundings. You could try to cool it by putting it in a bowl of ice at 0[C], but the problem is that the ice is solid and will only touch the bottle at a few points. This results in a poor thermal conductivity, so the drink will only cool slowly. To get around this, you could try mixing the ice with some water. Now the bottle is touching the liquid over a large surface area, and the liquid itself has a higher thermal conductivity than solid ice due to mixing, so heat will be transferred much more quickly. But the problem is that the water wont be at zero degrees any more, at least not at rst (Im assuming the water comes from a tap, so its not chilled initially). You have to wait for quite a bit of the ice to melt before the waters temperature will drop. Also, once you put your warm drink into the water it will heat the water up as the drink cools down, so again you have to wait for the ice to melt in order for the water to cool again. The solution to this is to make the ice melt faster. You can do this by adding salt. This lowers the freezing point. This means rstly that the tap water youve added to the ice will cool to close to 0[C] much more quickly, and secondly that once youve put your drink in there the water will stay cold as the ice continues to melt.

2.4 Things to ponder

March 5, 2013

Its also possible that, with the salt added, the water can go to below 0[C], but this will only happen if the ice is quite a bit colder than 0[C]. This could be the case, but my intuition is that the rate of cooling due to the ice melting faster is more important here than the nal temperature. You could easily test this by putting a thermometer in the salty ice water and seeing if it goes much below freezing. Theres also the fact that dissolving the salt is endothermic, as we mentioned. To test whether this is important, you could try adding salt to some chilled water without any ice, and see if the temperature drops a lot. My feeling is that it will only drop by a tiny amount that will be hard to measure with a normal kitchen thermometer, but you can always try the experiment.

2.4

Things to ponder

Would adding absolutely any impurity depress the freezing point of water? Does water actually freeze at 0[C] or is it lower in real life? Why use salt specically on highways?