Experimental investigation of an adsorption refrigeration prototype with the working pair of composite adsorbent-ammonia

Abstract A 4-valve adsorption refrigeration prototype, which utilizes the composite adsorbent of calcium chloride/activated carbon and the refrigerant of ammonia, is developed and tested. System reliability is significantly improved because the integrated adsorbers are adopted, the closed circulation for heating and cooling processes is designed, and the system operation is optimized. Experiments showed that the prototype can start quickly, and the operation of the system is very stable. The influences of mass recovery time, cycle time, heating temperature, evaporating temperature and cooling water temperature on system performance have been studied. Experimental results indicate that for the −5 °C evaporating temperature, 130 °C heating temperature, 25 °C cooling water temperature, the optimized cycle time is 50 min with a mass recovery time of 120 s. The optimal coefficient of performance (COP), specific cooling power (SCP) and cooling capacity of this prototype are 0.197, 205.2 W kg−1 and 1.64 kW, respectively.

[1]  L. W. Wang,et al.  Experimental study of a novel CaCl2/expanded graphite-NH3 adsorption refrigerator , 2010 .

[2]  S. O. Enibe,et al.  Heat and mass transfer in porous spherical pellets of CaCl2 for solar refrigeration , 2000 .

[3]  Ruzhu Wang,et al.  Adsorption refrigeration-green cooling driven by low grade thermal energy , 2005 .

[4]  K. Leong,et al.  Theoretical insight of adsorption cooling , 2011 .

[5]  Ruzhu Wang,et al.  Effective thermal conductivity of expanded graphite–CaCl2 composite adsorbent for chemical adsorption chillers , 2006 .

[6]  Kyaw Thu,et al.  Study on a waste heat-driven adsorption cooling cum desalination cycle , 2012 .

[7]  Yuri I. Aristov,et al.  Novel ammonia sorbents “porous matrix modified by active salt” for adsorptive heat transformation: 3. Testing of “BaCl2/vermiculite” composite in a lab-scale adsorption chiller , 2010 .

[8]  D. C. Wang,et al.  A review on adsorption refrigeration technology and adsorption deterioration in physical adsorption systems , 2010 .

[9]  Vasily E. Sharonov,et al.  Ammonia sorption on composites ‘CaCl2 in inorganic host matrix’: isosteric chart and its performance , 2006 .

[10]  Keiko Fujioka,et al.  Composite reactants of calcium chloride combined with functional carbon materials for chemical heat pumps , 2008 .

[11]  Ruzhu Wang,et al.  Adsorption refrigeration- : An efficient way to make good use of waste heat and solar energy , 2006 .

[12]  Ruzhu Wang,et al.  Experimental investigation of a novel multifunction heat pipe solid sorption icemaker for fishing boats using CaCl2/activated carbon compound–ammonia , 2007 .

[13]  Ruzhu Wang,et al.  Compound adsorbent for adsorption ice maker on fishing boats , 2004 .

[14]  Kyaw Thu,et al.  Operational strategy of adsorption desalination systems , 2009 .

[15]  Bernard Spinner,et al.  Thermodynamic based comparison of sorption systems for cooling and heat pumping , 1999 .

[16]  Ruzhu Wang,et al.  Performance improvement of adsorption cooling by heat and mass recovery operation , 2001 .

[17]  Shengwei Wang,et al.  Experimental investigation of contact resistance in adsorber of solar adsorption refrigeration , 2002 .

[18]  Takao Kashiwagi,et al.  Solar/waste heat driven two-stage adsorption chiller: the prototype , 2001 .