International Journal of Refrigeration 30 (2007) 1050e1058 www.elsevier.

com/locate/ijrefrig

Experimental results of a solar powered cooling system at low temperature

` s*, Nathalie Mazet, Driss Stitou Nolwenn Le Pierre
Laboratory Processes, Materials and Solar Energy (PROMES) e CNRS, Rambla de la Thermodynamique, Tecnosud, 66100 Perpignan, France Received 4 September 2006; received in revised form 9 November 2006; accepted 4 January 2007 Available online 13 January 2007

Abstract A solar thermochemical prototype producing low-temperature cold has been built and tested during the summer and autumn 2005 in Perpignan, France. It cools a 560 L cold box down to about 25  C using only low-grade heat produced by two simple at plate solar collectors. The process involves two cascaded thermochemical systems using BaCl2 salt reacting with ammonia. Its working mode is discontinuous, as it alternates between one decomposition mode at high pressure (daytime) and one cold production mode at low pressure (nighttime). Experimental results prove the feasibility of this new concept of solar cold production, with temperatures as low as 30  C, demonstrate its potential use in housing, by the acceptable size and weight of the system and show the system performances during the sunniest months of the year, with a rough solar coefcient of performance (COP) of about 0.031 over the test period. The major meteorological parameters inuencing the process efciency are the solar irradiation and the outside temperature. 2007 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Absorption system; Ammonia; Solution; Barium chloride; Solar energy; Experiment; Performance

sultats expe rimentaux dun syste ` me de refroidissement Re ` basse tempe rature solaire a
nergie solaire ; Expe ` me a ` absorption ; Ammoniac ; Solution ; Chlorure de baryum ; E rimentation ; Performance Mots cle s : Syste

1. Introduction Solar coolers and refrigerators have been developed for more than 40 years using solid adsorption [1e3], liquid absorption [4,5] or thermochemical reaction processes [6,7]. These cold production systems require only heat as input energy, thus they can be used in hot regions with no electricity supply, for air conditioning or to store food or vaccines. Simple at plate solar collectors, single- or double-glazed, are

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 33 4 79 44 45 58; fax: 33 4 79 68 80 49. ` s). E-mail address: nlepi@univ-savoie.fr (N. Le Pierre 0140-7007/$35.00 2007 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2007.01.002

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Nomenclature A C Cp E DH Isun kcin Dm M P R R area (m2) condenser specic heat (J kg1 K1) evaporator enthalpy variation (J mol1) solar irradiation (J m2) reaction kinetic coefcient (s1) mass variation (kg) molar mass (kg mol1) pressure (Pa) reactor perfect gas constant (J mol1 K1) DS T X entropy variation (J mol1 K1) temperature (K) advancement of the reaction

Subscripts i reaction, evaporation or condensation coll1/coll2 collector 1 or 2 eq equilibrium evap evaporation out outside op operating r reaction

usually used to provide the heat at about 70 to 90  C [8]. However, the temperature of the heat source needed to supply simple sorption systems increases when the cold temperature decreases. Thus, to cool a cold box at deep-freezing temperatures (lower than 18  C), a heat source at more than 120  C is required [9]. Up to now, no solar deepfreezing device has been developed. Erhard et al. [4,10] reached temperatures as low as 10  C with the NH3eSrCl2 couple and a COP of 0.045e0.082 from a solar heat source at 100e120  C. Best and Pilatowsky [11] present an absorption NH3eH2O experiment in Mexico that allowed to reach temperature as low as 40  C with a COP between 0.15 and 0.5 but from solar parabolic trough concentrating collectors operating at 180  C. Complex and costly solar collectors are necessary to produce heat at these temperatures. Then, this project aims at designing a sorption process producing cold for deep-freezing, and using only low grade solar heat from simple at plate solar collectors (below 70  C). This system has to be as cheap and easy to use as possible. The scope of this process would not include the cooling of products introduced into the cold chamber at ambient temperature, but only the storage at deep-freezing temperature over a long period of pre-cooled food or medicine products. The power delivered by the process should then be sufcient to cover the heat transfer through the walls of the chamber. 2. Description of the process For simplicity and reliability, the refrigerant chosen was ammonia, as it allows operating over atmospheric pressure and is neutral with respect to the ozone-layer depletion and to the greenhouse effect. The solidegas reaction was the process chosen, as the solid sorbent bed can be located directly inside the solar collectors. Moreover, such system works without any moving component (as a pump or a valve). Ammonia can react with various chloride salts [12]. The chosen salt was Barium Chloride (BaCl2), which reacts following the reversible reaction:

BaCl2 s 8NH3 g2 41 BaCl2 NH3 8 s 8DHr

In direction 1, called synthesis, gaseous ammonia is xed on BaCl2 salt. This chemical reaction is exothermic and releases DHr. In direction 2, called decomposition, the salt releases ammonia. This endothermic reaction needs the heat quantity DHr. The reaction advancement, X, represents the salt percentage that has reacted with NH3. The thermochemical cold production system associates a solid/gas reaction (1) with a liquidegas phase change of ammonia. These two processes are monovariant. Their thermodynamic equilibrium conditions follow the Clausiuse Clapeyron equation (2) and are plotted in Fig. 1: lnP DHi DSi RT R 2

From an exergetic analysis of ideal cycles [13], the thermodynamic process described in Fig. 1 was found to suit the solar cold production application. It associates two thermally linked thermochemical systems. The two systems (primary (1) and secondary (2)) contain a reactor R, an evaporator E and a condenser C. During daytime, the two reactors R1 and R2 are heated and decomposition can occur. Ammonia desorbed by the salt can condense in condensers C1 and C2, respectively, both at ambient temperature (w25  C). During night time, reactor R2 is cooled down to ambient temperature. Synthesis happens in R2. Ammonia then evaporates in evaporator E2, which is thermally linked with R1. E2 and R1 temperatures then decrease to about 5  C and 5  C, respectively and R1 is then in synthesis conditions. Ammonia thus evaporates in E1 at very low temperatures, down to 33  C. Evaporation of ammonia in E2 goes on during the whole night period. This evaporation maintains R1 temperature low enough for an efcient synthesis reaction and thus an efcient evaporation of ammonia in E1.

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Condensation at Tout Ln(P) 14 bar C2 C1 NH3 3.5 bar Evaporation in E1 1 bar 25C 60C -1/T equilibrium line A) Day phase heat transfer mass transfer B) Night phase 1 bar E1 NH3 -33C -5C E2 NH3 L/G NH3 R2 R1 Solar heat 14 bar

BaCl2/ NH3

Ln(P)

NH3 L/G

BaCl2/ NH3

NH3 R2 Reaction at Tout

Heat transfer R1 from R1 to E2 5C 25C -1/T

Fig. 1. The cascaded cycle during (A) the day and (B) the night phases in the ClausiuseClapeyron diagram.

3. Description of the prototype 3.1. Prototype components The two collectors (respectively of 2 and 4 m2) are simple at plate solar collectors, single glazed (Figs. 2 and 3A). The glazing is an extra-clear 6-mm thick glass, with a transmission factor of 90%. The collectors contain the 89-mm diameter and 1-m long reactor tubes (respectively, 8 and 16 tubes for reactors 1 and 2), which are covered by an absorbent coated copper Sunselect, with a solar absorbance of 95% (Figs. 2B, C and 3A). These tubes are separated by a distance of 180 mm. The inter-tube space is also covered by selective copper, linked to the tubes as presented in Fig. 2B and C. The 89 mm tube diameter was the best compromise to enhance both heat and mass transfer in the reactor material, following previous research [14]. The sorbent salt BaCl2 (respectively, 41 and 82 moles for the two reactors) is located in the reactor tubes. It is inserted in consolidated reactive blocks using expanded natural graphite as binder. This manufacturing mode was developed to improve heat and mass transfers in the thermochemical reactors [15]. Three gas diffusers (diameter 8 mm) are added in each reactor tube, to improve the gas transfer along the whole length of the reactors [16]. Evaporator E2 is a smaller coaxial tube in reactor R1 (Fig. 2C). Both collectors are insulated on the back side, as well as the lateral faces of collector 1. Collector 2 walls (top and bottom faces) can be opened during the night (h in Figs. 2A and 3A) to enhance the natural convection of R2 in ambient air. These walls are closed during daytime, to block that convection. Moreover, R2 has ns on the back side, to improve the heat transfers when the walls are open. The opening of the collector walls is insured by two small motors (Fig. 3A) which could be easily driven by a small photovoltaic module. For our prototype, the

irradiance threshold for the automatic opening of the walls is 20 W/m2. The condensers C1 and C2 are parallel ned tubes of, respectively, 9 and 24 m2, cooled by natural convection in ambient air (Figs. 2A and 3B). They are situated in the shade of the collectors. Evaporator E1 (5 m2 nned tubes) is located inside the cold box (CB). This 560 L box is insulated by a 15 cm thick high performance insulation (0.022 W/(m K) at 10  C) and loses 1.4 W/K. When the cold box at 20  C is located in a room at 20  C, its cold loss is thus 60 W. This process does not involve any rotating piece or any valve. The system operating mode is thus autonomous, robust and silent. The only moving components are four check valves in the secondary system (a, b and c Fig. 2A), that control the ammonia ow inside that system [17]. Check valves a and b open when the pressure difference between the two sides is higher than 0.3 bar. Check valve c opens when the pressure difference is higher than 0.05 bar. 3.2. Measurements The prototype is instrumented with 57 thermocouples. Results given in the following are mean temperatures of the components (three thermocouples for E1, one for E2, four for R1, eight for R2, six for the ns and eight for CB). Thermocouples are placed on the wall of each component. Different probes are positioned on both sides of the reactor tubes (front and back sides of the collectors) as shown in Fig. 2B and C. The thermocouples in the cold box are situated in the cold box air, at various heights and distances from the evaporator. Temperature measurements were tested and are accurate 1.5 K for each thermocouple. A pyranometer (Fig. 3A) measures the global solar irradiation received in the plane of the solar collectors 10 W/m2. Three pressure transducers (Bourdon Haenni 0e25 bar 0.3%) are distributed between the two systems

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A
R1 d E2 g C1 f

a b R2 h c

C2 Tank 2 Roof

Tank 1 Cold box E1

Room in which the cold box is placed

d e R2

C
d e R1

f g

E2 g

thermocouple

Pressure transducer

level detector

Fig. 2. (A) Schematic representation of the solar cooling prototype. (B) Details of collector 2. (C) Details of collector 1. (a, b and c, check valves; d, collector glass; e, selective copper; f, ns; g, insulation; h, openable collector walls).

and two level detectors are located in the storage tank 1 and in E2 (Fig. 2A). Reactor 1 advancement X1 was calculated through the ammonia level in storage tank 1. X1 relative error was estimated at 13.5%. Due to a positioning problem of the level detector in E2, accuracy of X2 was very low, with a relative error over 60%. X2 value was thus not used and is not presented in this paper. The measurement time step was 5 min from 24th May to 28th July 2005, and 10 min from 9th September to 10th October. Fig. 4 shows the meteorological conditions, with measurement lacks in 20e22 July and 26e27 September due to acquisition problems. This graph shows three different periods: before 17th June, relatively low ambient temperatures (w20  C); then high temperatures until the end of July (w25 to 30  C); the autumn measurements show low temperatures (w15 to 20  C) and lower irradiations. 4. System operating mode Experimental results for 3rd and 4th July are presented in Fig. 5. The corresponding meteorological conditions are highlighted in Fig. 4. The rst day was warm and sunny and the second cloudy and milder.

The evolution begins at sunrise. During the rst hours (between 0 and 3 h), the advancement X1 increases, showing the synthesis process happening in R1, while the two reactor temperatures increase due to solar irradiation. This paradoxical behaviour is due to the positioning of the thermocouples of the reactors, not inside the salt beds but on the reactor walls. Hence, at the beginning of the heating up of the reactors, the recorded temperatures increase faster than the average bed temperature. Once the R1 and R2 temperatures reach about 50  C, decomposition reactions begin. There is a plateau in the temperature evolution, as the heat absorbed by the solar collectors is mainly used by the endothermic decomposition process. The reaction in R1 is very fast, and once the advancement reach about 0.2, the reaction rate decreases and R1 temperature rises again to over 130  C. This slowdown in the reaction rate as X decreases is consistent with the kinetic expression for decomposition processes [18]: dX Pop Peq kcin X dt Pop 3

The temperature plateau is longer for reactor R2, due to the lower efciency of this collector, because of its poorer

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Fig. 3. Photographs of the solar cooling prototype. (A) Front side. (B) Back side (h, openable collector walls).

thermal insulation: the closing of the collector walls during daytime blocks the main part of the convection between the reactor and the ambient air, but this closing is not completely leak proof. Indeed, the ns temperature in collector 2 remains about 5  C lower than the reactor temperature (0e8 h). R2 temperature plateau stops at about 8 h, showing that the endothermic decomposition process is completed, on that day. The following irradiation induces a temperature peak of R2 (10 h). During daytime (0e15 h), evaporator E2 is empty and heats up, as it is thermally linked to R1. E1 heats slowly up from 23 to 5  C: this is the natural temperature evolution of the empty box with no cold production. After about 8 h, the solar radiations decrease and after about 11 h, they become too low to counteract the collectors heat losses. Thus, the reactors cool down progressively. This cooling changes the pressure conditions in the different parts

of system 2 and ammonia contained in tank 2 at ambient temperature ows toward E2. Thus, E2 temperature decreases strongly at 14 h, making the synthesis reaction begin in R1 (increase of X1), as the reaction heat can be transferred from R1 to E2. The night phase begins at sunset (15 h) with the opening of the side walls of the secondary solar collector in order to enhance R2 cooling. Thus, there is an abrupt decrease of the ns temperature at 15 h, toward the ambient temperature. The salt in R2 begins to react with gaseous ammonia and the reaction heat is rejected to the environment. Pressure then decreases in system 2 and the evaporation rate of ammonia in E2 is enhanced. Consequently, reactor R1 is cooled, and the reaction heat of the exothermic synthesis in R1 is transferred to E2. R1 is thus cooled down below the ambient temperature, down to 10  C (24 h). The synthesis reaction goes on in R1 (14e27 h) and X1 increases

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35 30 25 20 20 15 15 10 10 5 0
ly ne ne ay ay ly ly ne ne ne ly Ju Ju Ju Ju Ju em em em ob th th th th th th th h th 5t th ct ct h er ob er r r be be Ju Ju Ju M M Ju be r
Irradiation Tout night Tout day

1055
30

July, 3rd/4th

25

Daily irradiation (MJ/m2)

T (C)

11

17

23

29

Se

Se

Se

tO

pt

pt

11

17

24

30

23

5t

pt

1s

th

th

13

19

Fig. 4. Meteorological conditions (daily irradiation, mean daily temperature and mean nightly temperature) during the measurement periods.

steeply, up to 0.65. E1 is cooled down to about 22  C (26 h). Collector 2 ns approach the ambient temperature during the night, but remain higher, due to the heat transfer from R2. The second day evolutions are similar to the rst one. However, that day presents worse weather conditions than the previous one. Thus, after about 6 h of decomposition (at 31 h), the reacting process stops, and X1 remains constant until the beginning of the following night. R1 and R2 temperatures remain between 50 and 60  C during the whole day, due to the lack of irradiation.

Then, the opening of the collector side walls at sunset (36 h) decreases steeply the ns temperature. As the amplitudes of reaction advancement are smaller during that night, a lower reaction heat is released by R2 and the ns and R2 quickly reach the ambient temperature. Thus, R1 cooling (thanks to E2) is weaker and its temperature remains over the ambient one (38 to 48 h). The cold box is cooled down to 10  C during the night phase (38 h) and then its temperature stabilises, due to the low reaction rate in R1. E2 temperature seems to decrease more than the previous night and reaches about 5  C (40 h). This is due to the

E2

R1

R2

E1

fins

out

25

th

X1

solar irradiation

7t

160 140 120

DAY

NIGHT

DAY

NIGHT

1 0,9 0,8 0,7 0,6 0,5 0,4 0,3 0,2 0,1 0

Advancement X (-) and irradiation (kW/m2)

Temperature (C)

100 80 60 40 20 0 -20 -40 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

time from the sunrise of July 3rd, 2005 (h)

Fig. 5. Temperature and advancement evolutions of the solar cooling prototype on 3rd and 4th July 2005 and corresponding weather conditions (ambient temperature and solar irradiation).

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inadequate location of the thermocouple in the lowest part of E2, where a small quantity of ammonia was accumulated. These results thus show the possibility to produce cold at deep freezing temperature from simple at plate solar collectors. However, the cold box temperature also increases over 18  C and up to 5  C during the day phase, thus the aim of maintaining deep-freezing temperatures in the chamber is not attained. Hence, the average temperature of the evaporator is e8.5  C over these two days. This comes from the higher heat losses of the box than expected, due to the introduction of the evaporator in the chamber and condensation in the insulation material of the box during the tests. The chamber losses are then as high as 65 W as presented before, whereas the cooling process was designed for a 40 W heat loss. Consequently, the use of a phase change material (PCM) to store the cold produced during the night could not be experienced. This cold storage will be an essential component of a thermochemical deepfreezer. A phase change at 22  C is planned to keep the cold chamber at a temperature lower than 18  C. In that case, evaporation at lower than 25  C would be needed and the average temperature of the evaporator would be decreased compared to the presented experimental results. An improved box of lower volume and lower heat losses will be built in order to improve these experimental results. 5. Performances and inuences of the meteorological conditions Fig. 6A shows the maximum temperatures reached by the two collectors during the 93 days of the measurement period. This curve illustrates the lower efciency of collector 2 compared to collector 1. Fig. 6B shows minimum temperatures reached by E1 and by the air inside the cold box (CB) during the nights. The capability of the process to produce deep-freezing temperatures depends strongly on the solar irradiation. The lowest E1 temperature is 31  C. E1 temperatures lower than 20  C are obtained mainly when the solar irradiation is higher than 18 MJ/(m2 day) and, over the measurement period, during 72% of the nights. CB temperature is from 3 to 6  C higher than E1, as could be expected taking into account the low natural convection heat transfer and the cold box losses. This temperature will not be further discussed, because of the CB problems expressed in the previous paragraph. The plot also shows average E1 temperatures during the days. These average temperatures take into account also the decomposition phase during which no cold is produced. They reach e16  C on some days, but this is not sufcient for a deep-freezing purpose. The rough solar coefcient of performance (COP) of the solar system is dened as the ratio of the heat extracted by evaporation in the cold chamber (E1) to the solar irradiation received by the two solar collectors. It is calculated with a relative accuracy of 22% from the amount of ammonia evaporated in E1 DmNH3 according to the simplied formula:

160 140 120

Tmax collector 1 Tmax collector 2

T (C)

100 80 60 40 20 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

daily irradiation (MJ/(m2.day))

5 0 -5

T (C)

-10 -15 -20 -25 -30 -35 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Tmin E1 night T E1 average Tmin CB air night

daily irradiation (MJ/(m2.day))

Fig. 6. (A) Maximum collectors temperatures and (B) minimum and average E1 and minimum cold box (CB) air daily temperatures vs. daily irradiation during the 93 days of the measurement periods.

DmNH3 COP

  DHevap CpNH3 Tout Tevap MNH3 Acoll1 Acoll2 Isun

The average COP (total cold produced during all the experimental periods divided by the corresponding total irradiation) is 0.031 over the 93 days of experiments. This is lower (about one-third) than the COP of other solar cold production systems but working at higher evaporation temperature of about 10  C [2e5,7,8,19,20]. For this deep freezing thermochemical system, the ideal COP is 0.23 [21]. It is dened as the ratio of cold produced by ammonia evaporation in E1 in the ideal thermodynamic cycle to the heat required for salt regeneration (in R1 and R2). The experimental COP of 0.031 takes into account the dynamics of the process and the sensible heats of the salts, ammonia and inert components during the transient phases. The sensible heats of the reactive salt and uid account for an important part of the COP decrease, as the COP value taking into account this parameter is 0.17 [21]. It also takes into account the solar collector efciency, that is the ratio between the heat transferred to the reactors to the input solar irradiation, and that is about 60% for at plate solar collectors. However, it is likely that the present solar collectors are less efcient than usual at plate collectors, due to quite poor thermal insulation of collector 2 and higher radiative losses at the high collector temperatures reached.

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1057
T E1 min

The daily cold quantity produced in E1 and the corresponding COP during the measurement periods are shown in Fig. 7. This gure as well as the following one present a large scatter of data, due to an important number of inter-related inuencing parameters on the prototype functioning in real weather conditions. The following discussion will try to enhance the inuence of two of these meteorological parameters. The cold production increases with the irradiation (Fig. 7), but in a non-linear way and thus the resulting COP decreases. Indeed, when the daily solar irradiation is lower than about 15 MJ/(m2 day), it is not sufcient to cover both the heating of the collectors to over the decomposition temperature and the reaction heat. Most of the irradiation is used to heat up the walls and the inert components of the reactors. Thus, the cold production during the following night is low. On the contrary, for high irradiation, once the advancements X reach their minimal values (lower than 0.2), the reaction rates decrease, and the irradiation is then used to heat up the inert reactor components to over the decomposition temperature (see temperature peaks at 10 h in Fig. 5). Moreover, at these high temperatures, the efciency of the solar collectors decreases. Consequently, this process seems best optimised for a solar heat quantity of about 18e22 MJ/(m2 day): this quantity is high enough to allow an efcient decomposition and low enough to avoid a too high temperature peak of the solar collectors and too many heat losses of the reactors. This same type of inuence was found by simulations for an experimental adsorption refrigerator [22], but the optimum radiation quantity was then found at 12 MJ/(m2 day) for the designed machine. The inuence of the outside temperature on the COP and the cold temperature is shown in Fig. 8. To separate the inuence of the irradiation and of the temperature, the days represented here are only the ones during which the irradiation was between 22 and 26 MJ/(m2 day). The most favourable days are the coolest and the day or night temperatures have the same inuence on the COP: a decrease of about 0.005 for a temperature increase of 10  C. However, it is

COP = f(Tout)

COP = f(Tout night)

Minimum temperature of E1 (C)

4,5 4

0 -5 -10 -15

COP*100

3,5 3

-20 2,5 2 1,5 12 17 22 T (C) 27 -25 -30 -35

Fig. 8. Minimum E1 temperature vs. mean daily temperature (over 24 h) and rough solar COP vs. mean daily and nightly temperature (measurements for days with an irradiation higher than 22 MJ/m2).

difcult to separate the inuence of the night temperature and of the day one, as both are closely related, as shown in Fig. 4. The increase in outside air temperatures lowers the system performances for three reasons: - at night time, the high air temperature slows down R2 cooling. Thus, time available for the synthesis reactions and the reaction rates are both reduced and this process can be stopped before completion at sunrise. - moreover, R2 synthesis temperature is high at night, thus increasing E2 and R1 temperatures. This, in turn, increases the boiling temperature in E1 and thus the cold box one. The minimum evaporator temperature rises of 6.3  C for an ambient temperature increase of 10  C. - during daytime, the high air temperature increases the ammonia one in the air-cooled condensers. Thus, the reactor equilibrium temperature must also be higher. The solar collector efciencies are reduced in these conditions, thus the rough solar COP is also decreased.

6. Conclusion and outlooks

6 5
cold produced COP

6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

COP*100

4 3 2 1 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

daily irradiation (MJ/(m2.day))

Fig. 7. Daily cold production and rough solar COP of the solar cooling prototype vs. daily irradiation.

A new thermochemical process has been built and studied at PROMES laboratory in Perpignan (South of France), to generate cold at low temperature (below 20  C) from low grade heat produced by simple at plate solar collectors. This process associates two cascaded thermochemical cycles working in parallel and using the BaCl2eNH3 reaction. The experimental prototype reached evaporator temperatures as low as 30  C using low temperature solar heat in the range of 55e80  C. Experiments showed the system performances during the sunniest months of the year, with a rough solar COP of about 0.031 over the three months measurement period. The efciency of the process is mainly inuenced by the solar irradiation and the outside temperature. However, the experimental cold box did not show

cold produced in E1 (kJ)

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N. Le Pierre ` s et al. / International Journal of Refrigeration 30 (2007) 1050e1058 [8] F. Buchter, P. Dind, M. Pons, An experimental solar-powered adsorptive refrigerator tested in Burkina-Faso, International Journal of Refrigeration 26 (2003) 79e86. [9] Y. Fan, L. Luo, B. Souyri, Review of solar sorption refrigeration technologies: development and applications, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, in press (Available online: 20 March 2006). [10] A. Erhard, K. Spindler, E. Hahne, Test and simulation of a solar powered solid sorption cooling machine, International Journal of Refrigeration 21 (2) (1998) 133e141. [11] R. Best, I. Pilatowsky, Solar assisted cooling with sorption systems: status of the research in Mexico and Latin America, International Journal of Refrigeration 21 (2) (1998) 100e115. [12] V. Goetz, B. Spinner, E. Lepinasse, A solid-gas thermochemical cooling system using BaCl2 and NiCl2, Energy 22 (1) (1997) 49e58. ` s, D. Stitou, N. Mazet, B. Spinner, Ideal Process [13] N. Le Pierre conceptual design based on the exergetic analysis. New couplings of thermochemical dipoles for cold production from low grade heat, International Journal of Energy Environment Economics 12 (3) (2003) 105e115. de s a ` sorption solide-gaz et a ` ab[14] D. Stitou, Couplage de proce ` me et mode ` le de dimensorption liquide-gaz: analyse syste acteur thermochimique, PhD thesis, sionnement du re Perpignan university, 13 septembre 1995. de de mise en uvre et [15] C. Coste, G. Crozat, S. Mauran, Proce action solide-gaz, Patent FR 8,309,885, extension US patent re 4,595,774, 1983. [16] P. Jolly, N. Mazet, Optimisation of gas diffusion in reactive media, with simultaneous heat and mass transfers and chemical reaction, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 42 (1999) 302e321. ` s, Proce de de production de froid basse tempe ra[17] N. Le Pierre ture (28  C) par sorption solide-gaz, PhD thesis, Perpignan University, 29th September 2005 (in French). [18] N. Mazet, M. Amouroux, B. Spinner, Analysis and experimental study of the transformation of an isothermal solid/ gas reacting medium, Chemical Engineering Communication 99 (1991) 155e174. [19] A.O. Dieng, R.Z. Wang, Literature review on solar adsorption technologies for ice-making and air-conditioning purposes and recent developments in solar technologies, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 5 (2001) 313e342. [20] W. Wongsuwan, S. Kumar, P. Neveu, F. Meunier, A review of chemical heat pump technology and applications, Applied Thermal Engineering 21 (2001) 1489e1519. ` s, D. Stitou, N. Mazet, New deep-freezing process [21] N. Le Pierre using renewable low-grade heat: from the conceptual design to experimental results, Energy 32 (2007) 600e608. [22] M. Li, R.Z. Wang, A study of the effects of collector and environment parameters on the performance of a solar powered solid adsorption refrigerator, Renewable Energy 27 (2002) 369e382.

constant temperatures over the day, as this cold box showed higher heat losses than the average cooling capacity of the process. Moreover, the average cold box temperature is higher than 18  C over the test period. Thus, this experiment is only a rst step toward solar-powered deep-freezing. Further work will be carried out by studying the system evolution over a longer period and by considering the potential use of other types of low grade heat (such as waste or geothermal heat) as energy input for this process. Another point under study is the improvement of the cold box insulation and the use of a PCM in this box to ensure a low temperature over the whole day from a discontinuous cold production. This cold storage will also be necessary considering the uctuating solar irradiation received depending on the weather conditions and on the season. A simulation work is also under progress to nd the best compromise between an acceptable coverage of the chamber needs and an overdimensioning of the process components. Acknowledgement This work was supported by the French governmental Agency for Energy Management and Environment (ADEME) and the ENERGIE program of the CNRS through the project PRI Froid Solaire 6.1.

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