Dynamic characteristics of a novel adsorption refrigerator with compound mass‐heat recovery

A three‐effect heat pipe (heat pipe heating, heat pipe cooling and heat pipe heat recovery) adsorption refrigeration system using compound adsorbent (calcium chloride and activated carbon) was designed. The dynamic characteristics of mass and heat pipe heat recovery were studied. The results show that mass recovery and heat pipe heat recovery can improve (specific cooling power) SCP and (coefficient of performance) COP greatly. The averaged SCP of the cycle with mass recovery and the cycle without mass recovery is 502.9 W/kg and 436.7 W/kg at about 30 °C of cooling water temperature and ?15 °C of evaporating temperature. The corresponding COP is 0.27 and 0.24 respectively. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Experimental performance of a silica gel–water adsorption chiller

A newly developed adsorption water chiller is described and tested. In this adsorption refrigeration cycle system, there is no refrigerant valve. Thus, the problem of mass transfer resistance occurring in the conventional systems when methanol or water is used as refrigerant and resulting in pressure drop during the flow of refrigerant inside the tubing is eliminated. To make the utilization of low heat source with temperature ranging from 70 to 95 °C possible, silica gel–water was selected as working pair. The experimental results proved that it is able to produce a cooling power of 6.3 kW with a COP of about 0.4. The test results demonstrate that, through the heat recovery, the COP can be increased by 34.4% while mass recovery has the effect of increasing the cooling power by 13.7% and the COP by 18.3%. The performances of the system were analyzed for varied condensation temperature and for varied evaporation temperature. Based on the first prototype, the second prototype is designed and manufactured to improve the performance. Primary test results demonstrate that the performance is highly improved. It has a COP of about 0.5 and cooling power 9 kW for 13 °C evaporation temperature.     

Experimental study of a solidified activated carbon-methanol adsorption ice maker

In this paper, the experiments are performed on an adsorption ice maker driven by waste heat, which uses up to two beds. Each bed uses methanol as refrigerant and solidified activated carbon (120 kg adsorbent totally, 60 kg adsorbent per bed) as adsorbent. This system is designed to be driven by the waste heat of a 100 kW diesel engine. The experiments show that the cooling power could be enhanced by the mass recovery process up to 11%, and the heating power could be lowered by the heat recovery process up to 30%. The optimal cooling power of this prototype is about 2.0 kW and corresponds to a specific cooling power (SCP) is about 17 W/kg with both heat and mass recoveries between two beds. Considering the optimal adsorption time is much longer than optimal desorption time at the condition of ice making, the experiments are operated on a single bed (60 kg adsorbent per bed) and the adsorption time used in experiments is two times of desorption time, then the performance of a three-bed adsorption ice maker (120 kg adsorbent totally, 40 kg adsorbent per bed) is predicted by the results of experiments on this single bed. The results of prediction show that both COP and cooling power of three-bed operation could be enhanced greatly compared to the two-bed operation; optimal SCP and COP are respectively 22 W/kg and 0.239 when mass and heat recoveries proceed between three beds. Optimal ice productivity of this three-bed system is 21 kg/h when the water temperature is 25 °C and ice temperature is −7 °C.     

Performance Comparison of Three-Bed Adsorption Cooling System With Optimal Cycle Time Setting

This article presents the optimal cycle time and performance of two different types of silica gel–water-based three-bed adsorption chillers employing mass recovery with heating/cooling scheme. A new simulation program has been developed to analyze the effect of cycle time precisely on the performance of the systems. The particle swarm optimization (PSO) method has been used to optimize the cycle time and then the optimum performances of two chillers are compared. Sensitive analysis of cycle time has been conducted using the contour plot of specific cooling power (SCP) with driving heat source temperature at 80°C. It is found that the center point of the contour indicates the maximum SCP value and optimal cycle time, which are comparable with the quantitative values obtained for the PSO method. Both three-bed mass recovery adsorption cycles can produce effective cooling at heat source temperature as low as 50°C along with a coolant at 30°C. The optimal SCP is similar for both cycles and is greater than that of the conventional two-bed adsorption system employing the same adsorbent–refrigerant pair. Consequently, the proposed comparison method is effective and useful to identify the best performance of adsorption cycles.     

太阳能冷管的研究及其进展

太阳能冷管以沸石分子筛—水为工质对，在一根玻璃管内完成吸附式制冷循环，一根冷管即为一个制冷单元，成功地解决了太阳能吸附式制冷技术难以转化为成果的问题。本文综述了作者近几年来对太阳能冷管首创性提出，以及其结构性能的研制和改进情况。采用真空集热方式和选择性涂层加强冷管对太阳能的吸收，采用整体固化复合吸附剂提高吸附床的吸附和脱附性能。本文还介绍了已制作的三代太阳能冷管型制冷系统的试验样机，在单一提供制冷的基础上，提出了既可以制冷又可以供热水的多功能太阳能冷管。目前，实验结果表明，最新的多功能太阳能冷管COP可达0．268，太阳能制冷与供热的总效率可达87．7％。     

System performance of a combined heat and mass recovery adsorption cooling cycle: A parametric study

Based on the previous work of the authors [K.C. Leong, Y. Liu, Numerical study of a combined heat and mass recovery adsorption cooling cycle, Int. J. Heat Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 4761–4770], a numerical study of the effects of system design and operation parameters on the performance of a combined heat and mass recovery adsorption cycle is presented in this paper. The effects of bed dimensions, bed thermal conductivity, heat exchange fluid velocity, driven temperature and the degree of the heat recovery on the system performance are investigated. It is found that an increase in the driven temperature results in the increase of both the coefficient of performance (COP) and specific cooling power (SCP) of the adsorption cycle. On the other hand, the system performance can be severely deteriorated for velocities of the heat exchange fluid smaller than a critical value. An increase in the bed thickness will result in an increase in COP and a decrease in the SCP. The results of our simulations will provide useful guidelines for the design of this type of advanced adsorption cooling cycle.     

Heat and mass transfer in adsorbent bed with consideration of non-equilibrium adsorption

In the solid adsorption refrigeration cycles, the actual adsorption processes are all non-equilibrium. To investigate the heat and mass transfer in adsorbent bed, mathematical model is established and solved by a numerical method. The relations between adsorption temperature, adsorption velocity, adsorption quantity, coefficient of performance (COP), specific cooling power (SCP) and time are discussed during the process of cooling the adsorbent bed. The relations between desorption temperature, desorption velocity, desorption quantity and time are discussed during the process of heating the adsorbent bed. It indicates that there is a peak value for adsorption velocity in the adsorption process and there is also a peak value for desorption velocity in the desorption process. It also shows that the changing rate of the adsorbent temperature tends to let up, and the coefficient of performance value grows nearly linearly in the adsorption process and there is a peak value of SCP in the adsorption process.     

Numerical study of a combined heat and mass recovery adsorption cooling cycle

A new transient two-dimensional model for the simulation of a combined heat and mass recovery adsorption cooling cycle based on the zeolite NaX/water working pair is proposed in this paper. The model describes the transfer phenomena in the adsorber in detail and is solved by control volume method. Internal and external mass transfer limitations which are neglected by many researchers are considered in the model since they have significant effects on the performance of the adsorption cooling cycle. The numerical results show that the combined heat and mass recovery cycle between two adsorbent beds can increase the coefficient of performance (COP) of an adsorption cooling system by more than 47% compared to the single bed cycle. This numerical model can be used in system optimization and design of adsorption cycles.     

Modelling and performance study of a continuous adsorption refrigeration system driven by parabolic trough solar collector

This article suggests a numerical study of a continuous adsorption refrigeration system consisting of two adsorbent beds and powered by parabolic trough solar collector (PTC). Activated carbon as adsorbent and ammonia as refrigerant are selected. A predictive model accounting for heat balance in the solar collector components and instantaneous heat and mass transfer in adsorbent bed is presented. The validity of the theoretical model has been tested by comparison with experimental data of the temperature evolution within the adsorber during isosteric heating phase. A good agreement is obtained. The system performance is assessed in terms of specific cooling power (SCP), refrigeration cycle COP (COP_cycle) and solar coefficient of performance (COP_s), which were evaluated by a cycle simulation computer program. The temperature, pressure and adsorbed mass profiles in the two adsorbers have been shown. The influences of some important operating and design parameters on the system performance have been analyzed.The study has put in evidence the ability of such a system to achieve a promising performance and to overcome the intermittence of the adsorption refrigeration systems driven by solar energy. Under the climatic conditions of daily solar radiation being about 14 MJ per 0.8 m² (17.5 MJ/m²) and operating conditions of evaporating temperature, T_ev = 0 °C, condensing temperature, T_con = 30 °C and heat source temperature of 100 °C, the results indicate that the system could achieve a SCP of the order of 104 W/kg, a refrigeration cycle COP of 0.43, and it could produce a daily useful cooling of 2515 kJ per 0.8 m² of collector area, while its gross solar COP could reach 0.18.     

A four-bed mass recovery adsorption refrigeration cycle driven by low temperature waste/renewable heat source

The study deals with an advanced four-bed mass recovery adsorption refrigeration cycle driven by low temperature heat source. The proposed cycle consists of two basic adsorption refrigeration cycle. The heat source rejected by one cycle is used to power the second cycle. Due to the cascading use of heat and cooling source, all major components of the system maintain different pressure levels. The proposed cycle utilize those pressure levels to enhance the refrigeration mass circulation that leads the system to perform better performances. The performance of the proposed cycle evaluated by the mathematical model at equilibrium condition and compared with the performance of the basic two-bed adsorption refrigeration cycle. It is seen that the cooling effect as well as COP of the proposed cycle is superior to those of the basic cycle. The performances of the cycle are also compared with those of the two-stage cycle. Results also show that though the cooling effect of the proposed cycle is lower than that of two-stage cycle for heat source temperature less than 70 °C, the COP of the cycle, however, is superior to that of two-stage cycle for heat source temperature greater than 60 °C.     

Numerical analysis of an advanced three-bed mass recovery adsorption refrigeration cycle

Numerical analysis of an adsorption cycle employing advanced three-bed mass recovery cycle with and without heat recovery is introduced in this paper. The cycle consists of three silica gel adsorbent beds with different heat utilization functions. The beds can be divided into two cycles with different desorption mechanisms. The working principle of the cycle is introduced, and performances of three-bed, single stage, and mass recovery adsorption cycles are compared in terms of coefficient of performance (COP) and specific cooling power (SCP). The paper also presents the effect of adsorber mass distribution and desorption time on performance. The results show that by applying heat recovery to the cycle, better COP values will be produced compared to that without heat recovery. The results also show that there is an optimum point of adsorber mass distribution and desorption time that produces optimum performance. Furthermore, the paper also compares the performances of the proposed cycle, a single-stage cycle, and a mass recovery cycle.     

新型吸附式制冷系统吸附床的研究进展

吸附床的传热传质性能是提高吸附式制冷效率的关键,优化吸附床的结构能够有效提高整个吸附床的传热传质效率,减少热量损失,提高系统的制冷效率（coefficient of performance, COP）和单位质量吸附剂制冷量（specific cooling power, SCP）。本文介绍了近年来几种新型吸附床的类型,综述了吸附剂侧的固化吸附剂和涂层吸附剂,以及换热器侧的新型换热器结构。最后阐述新型吸附床的未来发展方向和研究重点。     

Experimental study of a low temperature heat driven re-heat two-stage adsorption chiller

The performance of an advanced adsorption chiller, namely, ‘reheat two-stage’ has been investigated experimentally in the present study. The performances in terms of specific cooling power (SCP) and COP are compared with those of conventional single and two-stage chiller. Results show that the reheat two-stage chiller provides more SCP values than those provided by conventional single-stage chiller while it provides better COP values for relatively low heat source temperature. The reheat two-stage chiller also provides almost same cooling capacity comparing with two-stage chiller for the low temperature heat source, while it provides higher COP value than that provided by two-stage chiller. Experimental results also show that the overall performance of the reheat two-stage chiller is always higher than that of conventional single and two-stage adsorption cycle even the temperature of the heat source is fluctuated between 55 and 80 °C.     

Particular characteristics of transcritical CO2 refrigeration cycle with an ejector

The present study describes a theoretical analysis of a transcritical CO₂ ejector expansion refrigeration cycle (EERC) which uses an ejector as the main expansion device instead of an expansion valve. The system performance is strongly coupled to the ejector entrainment ratio which must produce the proper CO₂ quality at the ejector exit. If the exit quality is not correct, either the liquid will enter the compressor or the evaporator will be filled with vapor. Thus, the ejector entrainment ratio significantly influences the refrigeration effect with an optimum ratio giving the ideal system performance. For the working conditions studied in this paper, the ejector expansion system maximum cooling COP is up to 18.6% better than the internal heat exchanger cycle (IHEC) cooling COP and 22.0% better than the conventional vapor compression refrigeration cycle (VCRC) cooling COP. At the conditions for the maximum cooling COP, the ejector expansion cycle refrigeration output is 8.2% better than the internal heat exchanger cycle refrigeration output and 11.5% better than the conventional cycle refrigeration output. An exergy analysis showed that the ejector expansion cycle greatly reduces the throttling losses. The analysis was also used to study the variations of the ejector expansion cycle cooling COP for various heat rejection pressures, refrigerant temperatures at the gas cooler exit, nozzle efficiencies and diffuser efficiencies.     

余热制冷用氯化钙_硅胶复合吸附剂的制备及性能研究

为了开发出利用余热进行吸附制冷的高性能吸附剂,采用浸渍法在真空下将氯化钙担载于粗孔硅胶上,制备了硅胶/氯化钙复合吸附剂,测试了复合吸附剂的吸附等温线和吸附速率,测试结果表明:浸渍法得到的复合吸附剂对水具有更大的吸附能力,在20%的湿度下,复合吸附剂在2h的吸附量为15.64 g/100 g吸附剂,是单一硅胶在相同条件下吸附量的8.06倍。用制备的复合吸附剂制作了一台小型吸附制冷机并进行了测试,当热源温度为90℃,冷却水温度为35℃时,在整个循环周期内(15 min),制冷功率为0.705kW,单位质量吸附剂的制冷功率(SCP)为70.51 W/kg,COP为0.25。     

Thermodynamic analysis and performance study for adsorption refrigeration cycle driven by a fuel cell electric vehicle waste heat

Three kinds of adsorption refrigeration cycles are analyzed in this paper, a two‐bed continuous cycle, an adiabatic mass recovery cycle, and an isothermal mass recovery cycle. Operating parameters (including desorption temperature, adsorption temperature, cycle adsorption rate, COP, and period refrigerating capacity) with the change of the evaporating temperature, condensing temperature, heat capacity ratio, and heat resource temperature are discussed. The analysis indicates that performance differences between the mass recovery cycle and the two‐bed continuous cycle are reduced with an increasing of evaporating temperature and heat source temperature. By increasing the heat capacity ratio, COP values for the three kinds of cycle decrease. When the heat source temperature is between 70 and 90°C, the performance of the isothermal mass recovery cycle is best. Through study, this paper puts forward that the isothermal mass recovery cycle is the best cycle for adsorption refrigeration systems driven by fuel cell electrical vehicle waste heat. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res, 39(7): 523–538, 2010; Published online 16 July 2010 in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20315     

Experimental study on performance improvement of a four-bed adsorption chiller by using heat and mass recovery

The efficacy of a four-bed adsorption chiller has been studied experimentally with respect to a simple but yet effective passive heat and mass recovery schemes. It substantially improves the adsorption chiller COP by as much as 30% over a broad range of cycle time with a wide heat source, coolant and chilled water temperatures. Two schemes have been considered here: Firstly, only the mass recovery is achieved by pressure equalization between the concomitantly cooled adsorber and heated desorber, exploiting the intrinsic vapor-uptake potential by pressure swing that remains in the adsorbent at the end of a half-cycle. Secondly, when both the heat and mass recovery schemes are employed at a rating point of maximum cooling capacity, the chiller COP could increase further to as much as 48%. These improvements are performed without additional hardware changes to the adsorption chiller.     

Performance analysis of a waste heat driven activated carbon based composite adsorbent – Water adsorption chiller using simulation model

This study aims at improving the performance of a waste heat driven adsorption chiller by applying a novel composite adsorbent which is synthesized from activated carbon impregnated by soaking in sodium silicate solution and then in calcium chloride solution. Modeling is performed to analyze the influence of the hot water inlet temperature, cooling water inlet temperature, chilled water inlet temperatures, and adsorption/desorption cycle time on the specific cooling power (SCP) and coefficient of performance (COP) of the chiller system with the composite adsorbent. The simulation calculation indicates a COP value of 0.65 with a driving source temperature of 85 °C in combination with coolant inlet and chilled water inlet temperature of 30 °C and 14 °C, respectively. The most optimum adsorption–desorption cycle time is approximately 360 s based on the performance from COP and SCP. The delivered chilled water temperature is about 9 °C under these operating conditions, achieving a SCP of 380 W/kg.     

Experimental study of a solid adsorption cooling system using flat-tube heat exchangers as adsorption bed

In this paper, a solid adsorption cooling system with silica gel as the adsorbent and water as the adsorbate was experimentally studied. To reduce the manufacturing costs and simplify the construction of the adsorption chiller, a vacuum tank was designed to contain the adsorption bed and evaporator/condenser. Flat-tube type heat exchangers were used for adsorption beds in order to increase the heat transfer area and improve the heat transfer ability between the adsorbent and heat exchanger fins. Under the standard test conditions of 80 °C hot water, 30 °C cooling water, and 14 °C chilled water inlet temperatures, a cooling power of 4.3 kW and a coefficient of performance (COP) for cooling of 0.45 can be achieved. It has provided a specific cooling power (SCP) of about 176 W/(kg adsorbent). With lower hot water flow rates, a higher COP of 0.53 can be achieved.     

The effect of microwave regenerated adsorbent bed on the performance of an adsorption heat pump

The heat transfer problem of an adsorption heat pump during the regeneration of adsorbent bed was investigated numerically. A numerical analysis of the heat and mass transfer in an adsorbent bed during an adsorption heat pump cycle, achieved with both conventional and microwave heating, was successfully simulated. The influence of the microwave heating on the performance criteria of an adsorption heat pump was investigated. The distributions of temperature, pressure and adsorbate concentration of adsorbent bed through the radius of the bed were analyzed. The Clausius–Clapeyron diagram was constructed for both cases. The period of the cycle was improved by about 20% with the microwave regeneration, since the period of the isobaric desorption process for a microwave heated cycle was enhanced by 51% relative to the period of the isobaric desorption process for a conventional heated cycle. The COP for the microwave heated cycle was improved by 61% according to the conventional heated cycle.