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a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 3 September 2010
Received in revised form 18 December 2010
Accepted 20 December 2010
Available online 14 January 2011
Keywords:
Non-uniform pressure
Transient boundary condition
Driving force
ART
a b s t r a c t
The adsorption refrigeration tube (ART) has drawn increasing attention because of its advantages of no
moving parts, compact structure and use of low grade heat as the heat source. A new design of ART
was developed, in which activated carbonmethanol was selected as the working pair for either refrigeration or air-conditioning purposes. Based on the typical conguration of the generator of the ART, a
dynamic mathematical model was developed under the non-uniform pressure assumption and the
introduction of a transient boundary condition of diffusion equation. Moreover, experiments were conducted for validating the model. The experimental data and numerical results were compared in terms
of temperature development inside the carbon bed, with the transient and two popular simplied boundary conditions of vapor density respectively. The comparison shows that the transient boundary condition improves accuracy of the model and more importantly it is capable of reecting the dynamic shift
of dominant driving forces of the adsorption process inside the generator, i.e. shifting to temperature
driving gradually from diffusion driving.
Crown Copyright 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Adsorption refrigeration has been studied extensively since the
nineteen eighties for its low-grade energy requirement and
environmentally-friendly refrigerant [16]. The coefcient of performance (COP) and specic cooling performance (SCP) of adsorption refrigeration systems have been improved in recent years due
to system optimization with advanced thermal cycles [4,5,7,8].
However, the optimization increases the complexity of the system,
which in turn leads to a decrease in performance reliability of the
adsorption refrigeration systems.
Over the last ten years, some researchers studied ART that only
consists of integrated adsorber, condenser and evaporator, which
was aimed at improving system reliability through multi-ART
integration to achieve continuous and large scale refrigeration
capacity. Tamaninot-Telto and Critoph [9], in 1993, initially proposed a cooling tube with monolithic carbonammonia as working
pair, in which the monolithic carbon was made in situ within the
generator in order to reduce contact heat transfer resistance between the generator wall and the adsorbent. Zhao et al. [10] proposed a solar powered ART, in which vacuum glass tube was
employed to contain the adsorbent bed and adsorb solar energy
efciently. Wang and Zhang [11] developed a n-type adsorption
cooling tube that nned tube was adopted to improve heat transfer
within the adsorbent bed.
On the other hand, various mathematical models describing the
adsorption process were proposed. Some mathematical models
used lumped parameter method based on the uniform pressure
assumption to study the thermal performance [1113]. However,
this kind of model may not represent the accurate system performance, especially when the thickness of the adsorbent bed exceeds
a certain value which results in the uneven temperature prole
becoming signicant. Moreover, the assumption of uniform pressure may be not accurate as the pressure gradient within the
adsorbent bed would act as the principal driving force of adsorption at the very beginning of an adsorption process. For the side
of non-uniform pressure based model, although these kinds of
models have been proposed and studied, one important boundary
condition of the diffusion equation (or mass transfer equation), i.e.
gas density from the evaporator, all applied simplied constant
values [14,15]. This simplication is not accurate to some extent
since the dynamic shift of adsorption driving forces cannot be presented under the circumstances. In fact, the shift of driving forces
at the very beginning of the adsorption process, i.e. from diffusion
driving (gradient of gas density) to temperature driving, plays an
important role in following adsorbent temperature development
and adsorption performance.
The aim of this study is to establish a non-uniform pressure and
transient vapor density based model to investigate the adsorption
process of a real adsorption refrigeration cycle. Experiments were
0306-2619/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2010.12.062
281
Nomenclature
x
t
r
T
P
M
H
R0
Ri
Ro
I
N
C
cp
Q_
Ded
Dkm
Dk
Dm
D
n
2. Conguration description
The ART proposed is comprised of a generator, a condenser, an
evaporator, insulation sectors, a circulation pipe, a water jacket
Greek symbols
density, kg m3
k
thermal conductivity, W m1 K1
e
total porosity
a
coefcient of the transient boundary condition
Subscripts
s
solid adsorbent
l
liquid phase
g
gaseous phase
c
condensing
e
evaporating or gas from evaporator
t
transient
am
ambient
cb
activated carbon
eb
equivalent property of the adsorbent bed
sat
saturation status
ini
initial condition
max
maximum value in studied cycle
min
minimum value in studied cycle
1 2 3 4 200 400 30 40 status of relevant processes
3. Working principle
A non-valve controlled adsorption refrigeration cycle normally
includes two processes, which are heating-desorption process
and cooling-adsorption process (purposes 1200 3 and 3400 1,
shown in Fig. 2). However, a valve is usually added to control the
effective evaporating temperature by connecting the evaporator
Fig. 2. The Clapeyron diagram of the valve controlled and non-valve controlled
adsorption refrigeration cycles.
282
n
Psat
x x0 exp D T ln
P
@T
1 @
@T
Q_
keb
r
@t
r @r
@r
4. Modeling
qcp eb
where (qcp)eb denotes the total heat capacity of the control volume
of the adsorbent bed; keb refers equivalent thermal conductivity of
the adsorbent bed and Q_ represents internal heat source. Total heat
capacity (qcp)eb and internal heat source can be calculated as follows [18]:
In this study, the heat and mass transfer processes in the generator is considered to be one dimensional (radial). Fig. 3 shows the
simplied one dimensional scheme, in which uniform grid (layer)
is adopted. Besides the one dimensional assumption, the other
modeling assumptions are made as follows:
(1) The temperature of heat transfer uid is considered as
constant.
(2) The particles of activated carbon are uniformly distributed
and have identical adsorptive property.
@x
Q_ 1 e H qs
@t
@C
@x=M
1 @
@C
1 e qs
Ded e
r
@t
@t
r @r
@r
where C is the local density of gaseous methanol; x is the concentration of adsorbed methanol (in micropores of the carbon); M is the
molar mass of methanol; e is the total porosity of the carbon bed
and Ded is the effective diffusion coefcient.
The local density of gaseous methanol is evaluated with the
ideal gas law, Eq. (6), in which R0 is the gas constant. The temperature of gaseous methanol in Eq. (6) is approximately evaluated
with the correlation of methanol saturation vapor pressure and
corresponding temperature, Eq. (7) [12].
C P=R0 T
283
Ded e Dkm
1
1
1
Dkm Dk Dm
T
Dk 4850dpore 1=2
M
2T 3=2 j3 Na 1=2
Dm
3p3=2 r2 P M
Pt
Pc Pe
Pe
1 at
18
8
9
10
11
In above two equations, i.e. Eqs. (10) and (11), dpore is the pore
diameter of activated carbon; T is the temperature of gas methanol;
M is the molar mass of methanol; r is the Lennard-Jones diameter
of the spherical molecules of gas methanol; P is the local adsorption
pressure; j is the Boltzmann constant; Na is the Avogadros number
[20].
C t Pt =R0 T t
T 0; T ini T 4
12
T 0; C ini C 4
13
TjrRo T c
@T
0
@r
process, a concept of the transient system pressure (Pt) is introduced to reect the corresponding transient vapor density (Ct).
The transient pressure (Pt) is dened as Eq. (18):
14
15
rRi
@C
0
@r rRo
16
CjrRi C e
17
19
Table 1
Parameters for the simulation.
The value of Ce in Eq. (17) depends on the vapor pressure and its
temperature as shown in Eqs. (6) and (7).
In previous models developed by other researchers [1315], Ce
(or system pressure Pe) was assumed to be a constant that equals
to C 40 (or P4) in the process 41. However, the system pressure
and the density of methanol vapor from the evaporator are not
constants, especially when the evaporator is just connected to
the generator (i.e. status at point 4 in Fig. 2). There is a (quick) process for the pressure and corresponding methanol vapor density to
stabilize from Pc and C 30 to Pe and C 40 , which results in a transient
condition of vapor density for the diffusion effect. After this beginning stage, the pressure and the density of methanol vapor in the
evaporator reach and remain at the stable values. To present this
Symbol
Value
Unit
Symbol
Value
Unit
qs
qg
kg m3
kg m3
mol m3
mol m3
mol m3
K
K
Pa
Pa
R0
Cps
Cpl
Cpg
L
Ro
Ri
keb
x0
0.269 (exper.)
kg kg1
dpore
n
D
1.781 (exper.)
9.08e6
(exper.)
8314
0.72
930
2530
1370
1,102,000
0.105
0.055
0.175
(exper.)
10
(assumed)
500
0.005
(exper.)
J mol1 K1
C 30
C 40
C4
Tam
T4
Pc
Pe
420
0.8
6.6
3
2.5
298
338
16,360
7140
J kg1 K1
J kg1 K1
J kg1 K1
J kg1
m
m
W m1 K1
284
5. Experiments
The schematic diagram and photo of the test rig are shown in
Fig. 4a and b. The conguration of the experimental prototype of
the ART was modied for the testing purpose, which includes spindled evaporator, enlarged generator and non-compact connection.
Water baths were used as the simulated heating source and cooling source. Temperature was measured by the directly-inserted
thermocouple (T type). The thermocouples and the data logger
were calibrated separately by Fluke calibrators. The volume of
the evaporator was calibrated using a volume calibration syringe.
The main procedures of the experiments conducted include the
following steps:
(1) Heat and degas the carbon bed simultaneously for twelve
hours, and then isolate the generator by closing valve V2.
(2) Fill methanol into the evaporator and maintain evaporator at
T 30 . The amount lled in the evaporator is slightly higher
than the amount xmax Mcb for compensating the vacuuming process caused evaporation.
(3) Charge methanol into the carbon bed. The amount charged is
M4 = xmin Mcb.
(4) Set the status of the generator to point 4 (see Fig. 2) via circulating water (at T4) in water jacket until the carbon bed
temperature reaches T4 evenly.
(5) Connect the generator and evaporator and in the meantime
circulate cooling water (at Tc) in water jacket to start the
adsorption process.
(6) Record temperatures and pressures.
6. Results and discussion
Fig. 5 shows the comparison of pressure development among
experimental data and results calculated using the transient pressure Pt with a = 0.001, a = 0.005 and a = 0.009 respectively.
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram and photo of the experimental setup: (a) schematic diagram and (b) photo.
285
Fig. 5. Comparison of pressure development among experimental data and results calculated with the transient pressure Pt with a = 0.001 and a = 0.005, a = 0.009
respectively.
transient pressure was neglected, the phenomenon of the temperature jump could not be well predicted, such as the numerical
study in literature [14].
Fig. 7c shows the experimental and simulated results of temperature development under the introduced transient boundary
condition Ce = Ct with a = 0.005. There is a very good agreement between the calculated data and the experimental data. Therefore the
model developed is valid in terms of predicting the temperature
development. From Fig. 7, it can also be seen that the simulated
temperature increases before starting to decrease, which agrees
with the experimental data well. It indicates that the transient
boundary condition introduced is able to present the shift of the
dominant factors of the adsorption driving force, which is shifting
to temperature driving from vapor density gradient caused diffusion driving with the diminishing of the gradient of vapor density.
Fig. 8 shows the dynamic adsorption amount calculated with
Ce = C40 and Ce = Ct. The adsorption amount calculated with Ce = C40
is about 20% lower than that calculated with the transient boundary
286
Fig. 7. Comparison of experimental data and modeling results of temperature variation at three positions with static and transient boundary conditions Ce: (a) C e C 30 , (b)
C e C 40 and (c) Ce = Ct. (Makers represent experimental data and solid lines denote numerical results.)
287
Fig. 8. Dynamic adsorbed amount of methanol per meter ART of the studied base-case.
condition (Ce = Ct) in the rst 2000 s, which is resulted from the neglect of the strong diffusion effect at the very beginning moment.
However, with time goes on, the gap tends to reduce because the
value of Ct approaches the constant boundary condition C30 as well.
7. Conclusions
A dynamic model describing the adsorption process in the carbon/methanol refrigeration tube was established based on coupled
diffusion driving and temperature driving adsorption mechanism.
A concept of transient boundary i.e. transient pressure (and transient vapor density) was introduced for the rst time into the model. The model was preliminary validated in terms of adsorbent
temperature development after the determination of a value using
experimental data.
The introduced transient boundary condition provides an effective way to describe the shift of dominant driving forces of the
adsorption process, which is very helpful for improving the accuracy of the model.
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