3911 -- Experimental Investigation of a Silica Gel-Water Adsorption Refrigeration Cycle -- The Influence of Operating Conditions on Cooling Output and COP PDF

This paper is the second part of a study on the use of adsorption refrigeration cycles driven by waste heat of near ambient temperature. Experiments were conducted with several heat transfer fluid operating temperatures (hot, cooling, and chilled water), flow rates and adsorption-desorption cycle times, and good quantitative agreement was obtained with the simulated results. Both experiments and simulation showed that the silica gel-water adsorption cycle is well suited to near-environmental-temperature heat sources and small regenerating temperature lifts, which help reduce the heat losses intrinsic to batched cycle operation. The chiller was operational with a hot water inlet temperature (T hot in) of 50degC (122degF), and the highest experimental values of the coefficient of performance (COP) (more than 0.4) were obtained with T hot in = 50degC (122degF) in combination with cooling water at 20degC (68degF).

KEYWORDS: year 1995, experiment, silica, water, adsorption, desorption, refrigeration, cyclic, operations, cooling, output, coefficient of performance, heat recovery, ambient temperature, heat transfer fluids, fluid flow, flow rates, temperature lift, heat loss, chillers, calculating