INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH

Int. J. Energy Res., 22, 11571163 (1998)

INVESTIGATION ON ADSORPTION REFRIGERATION WITH
A SINGLE ADSORBENT BED
W. WANG, R. Z. WANG, Y. X. XU, J. Y. WU AND Y. B. GUI
Institute of Refrigeration & Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People+s Republic of China, 200030
SUMMARY
This paper describes an experimental investigation of adsorption refrigeration with a single generator (adsorbent bed) in
a basic cycle, which veries the previous theoretical conclusions that the cycle time and the maximum desorption
temperature (corresponding to the maximumtemperature of external heat source) are key factors with various inuences
to the COP and the cooling capacity of a cycle on a prototype machine. Moreover, in order to investigate the dierence
between theoretical and real cycles, a new physical parameter, the packing coecient, is introduced to the adsorption
cycle 1998 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
KEY WORDS adsorption refrigeration; experimental investigation
1. INTRODUCTION
Traditional compression vapour refrigeration technology is faced to the challenge of energy shortage and
environmental pollution, meanwhile, some alternatives of CFCs, such as HFC134a and mixtures of double
or multiple components do no harm the ozone of the atmospheric layer, but contribute to the problemof the
greenhouse eect. Solid adsorption refrigeration is attractive because, compared with the former, its
advantages are that: (1) the working cycle can be driven by a low-temperature heat source (similar to
absorption refrigeration), so it is adaptable in the elds of waste heat recovery and application of solar
energy, etc.; (2) the refrigerant adsorbate employed in refrigeration may be selected to non-CFC and
non-HFC, such as water, methanol and ammonia, etc., which neither destroy the ozone, nor correspond to
the greenhouse eect; (3) the main component of a refrigerator adsorbent bed is xed, and other parts are
almost not movable, so it can be applied in movable or vibration occasions such as automobiles etc., and its
structure is simpler than an absorption refrigerator in general. Therefore, in these years, adsorption
refrigeration has been developed rapidly. However, its shortcomings, for example non-continuous cycle, long
cycle time and low cooling capacity, could not be ignored. In application, the performance of refrigeration
with a single bed is not better than that with multiple beds, but on the basis of analysis on multiple beds
theoretically, the performance of single beds is important to study. This paper shows the investigation of
a single bed, which can provide some valuable reference to the development of adsorption refrigeration.
2. THEORY AND EQUIPMENT SETUP
Figure 1 shows the PT relation of a simple theoretical cycle, which involves two processes: desorp-
tioncondensation and adsorptionevaporation. In the former process corresponding to the lines from 13
*Correspondence to: Professor Ruzhu Wang, Institute of Refrigeration & Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai,
Peoples Republic of China, 200030. Email: rzwang@mail.sjtu.edu.cn
CCC 0363-907X/98/13115707$17.50 Received 9 March 1998
1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 19 May 1998
Figure 1. PTX diagram for a basic cycle
in the diagram, the heat applied Q

involves the sensible heat Q

'
for heating adsorbate and adsorbent,
respectively, and also the heat of desorption Q

. At the same time, the desorbed adsorbate is condensed and

its liquid is cooled to evaporating temperature; it would cost Q

cooling load.
Q

"Q

#Q
'
(1)
Q

"!m

V
V
H(x) dx (2)
Q
'
"

2
2
m

c
`
() d#

2
2
m

c
`
() d#

2
2
m

() dT#

2
2
m

() d (3)
Q

"

2
2
m

xc
`
() dT (4)
In the adsorptionevaporation process, from 3, 4 to 1 in the diagram, the heat Q

is rejected to the
environment, which consists of sensible heat of adsorbent and adsorbate Q
'
and adsorption heat Q

. In
addition, heat Q
'`
is the cooling load provided by the low-temperature evaporated adsorbate, and must be
subtracted from Q

.
Q

"Q

#Q
'
!Q
'`
(5)
Q

"m

`
`
H(x) dx (6)
Q
'
"

2
2
m

c
`
() dT#

2
2
m

c
`
() dT#

2
2
m

() dT#

2
2
m

() d (7)
If cooling capacity Q
''
is produced in evaporation,
Q
''
"

`
`
m

x (8)
the refrigeration COP would be
COP"
Q
''
!Q

(9)
Figure 2 shows the scheme of the experiment prototype machine, in which the adsorbent bed is made of
plate-n heat exchangers, the condenser and cooler are made of a plate-type heat exchanger, and the
1158 W. WANG E A.
Int. J. Energy Res., 22, 11571163 (1998) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Figure 2. Scheme of experiment
Figure 3. Eect of
"
through experimentation
evaporator is designed specially for adsorbate which is sprayed and then evaporated on the surface of pipes of
chilling water. Two sets of fan-coils served to refrigerate toward the surroundings, and an electric heater with
maximumheating capacity of 30 kWserved as the external heat source. The working pair is selected as active
carbonmethanol. The generator is lled with about 26 kg active carbon. The adsorption properties of active
carbon (ACYK) on methanol are shown in Wang et al. (1997).
3. EXPERIMENTS AND ANALYSIS
3.1. Maximum temperature of external heat source (Th)
Since only one adsorption bed is involved in this equipment, it runs intermittently in a working cycle; half
is in desorption, and the other half is in adsorption, so the cooling production lasts only half a cycle.
In Figure 1, the temperature

is closely relevant to the maximum temperature of external heat source

during the desorption process, since it aects the characters of the desorption, and the cooling capacity in
a cycle. The inuence of
"
on the cycle can be considered as that of

. Some experiments on the eect of

"
have been done. Figure 3 shows the curves of COP and cooling capacity vs.
"
. Figure 4 shows the
PX diagram of real cycles.
INVESTIGATION OF ADSORPTION REFRIGERATION 1159
1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res., 22, 11571163 (1998)
Figure 4. PTX diagram of a real cycle
Table 1. Experimental parameters about
"
at a cycle time of 30 min
Highest heating temperature (C) 85 89 93 100
Cycle time (min) 30 30 30 30
Cooling capacity (kW) 3)68 3)92 3)95 3)92
COP 0)167 0)164 0)159 0)15
Temperature of heating ( ) 79 82 86 88
Evaporation temperature ( ) 14)9 13)5 12)1 11)4
Condensation temperature ( ) 26)2 27)8 28)0 29)1
According to Fig. 3, the more
"
is increased, the more the quantity of methanol takes part in a cycle, so
the cooling capacity is increased. However, the higher the value of
"
, the more is the heat power is needed in
desorption, so it does not enable the cycle COP to be improved. Figure 4 shows the characteristics from the
viewpoint of cycle analysis. With the
"
improved, the whole cycle trace moves toward the eld of high
temperature gradually; this means that the values of adsorption capacity are higher at the end of adsorption
and desorption processes. Since their cycle times are equivalent, their cooling capacities are close. However,
in agreement with Table 1, the values of evaporating temperature tend to decrease following an increase in
the highest heating temperature.
3.2. Cycle time
Figure 5 shows both the curves of the cooling capacity and COP, respectively, vs. the cycle time based on
experimental results. Fromthe gure, it can be seen that as the cycle time is increased, the COP are improved
and cooling capacities are reduced. Moreover, according to this gure, in a xed equipment and certain
testing condition, the values of cycle time of the maximum COP do not agree with the ones of maximum
cooling capacity. Actually, the maximum COP takes place when the cycle time is long enough so that heat
dissipation in the system approaches zero. However, reasonable experimental data for maximum COP
would be conned in a certain cycle time.
Obviously, the process of cooling production relates closely to the process of adsorption in the adsorbent
bed, so the refrigeration is dominated by the situation of adsorption. In a normal working situation, at the
beginning of adsorption, although the amount of adsorbate in the adsorbent is lower, the adsorbent
temperature is higher, thus its adsorption speed does not reach a maximum, so the increase in cooling
1160 W. WANG E A.
Int. J. Energy Res., 22, 11571163 (1998) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Figure 5. Cycle time inuences on the cooling capacity and COP
Table 2. Experimental parameters about cycle time
Cycle time (min) 20 26 30 36 40 60
Cooling capacity (kW) 3)70 3)98 3)92 3)99 3)88 3)03
COP 0)12 0)15 0)15 0)18 0)18 0)21
Temperature of heating (C)
(Maximum) 86 (93) 88 (96) 88 (100) 91 (100) 90 (102) 87 (95)
Evaporation temperature (C) 10)9 11)5 11)4 11)2 11)9 9)0
Condensation temperature (C) 28)2 27)9 29)1 26)6 28)5 24)3
capacity is gradual. At the end of adsorption, if the cycle time is long enough, the low capacity of adsorption
of adsorbent makes the refrigeration capacity much lower. Therefore, if the cycle time was too short, the
process of adsorption (or desorption) would be terminated before its best capacity was reached, and the
perormance of cycle would be worse. Inversely, if the cycle time is too long, the cooling capacity in a cycle
would not be satised because the average speed of conveyed adsorbate is too low at the end of adsorption
(or desorption); besides, the COP would properly be decreased also because of heat leakage. In the normal
working range with shorter cycle time, the COP is low and the refrigeration capacity is high.
Figure 6 shows their PX diagram with dierent cycle times. It is apparent from the diagram that
a longer cycle time results in a bigger area in the gure, which means that the dierence of adsorp-
tion capacity x is more, and the amount of adsorbate conveyed in a cycle is more also. Facing an
actual adsorbent bed, as analysed formally, the speed of adsorption (or desorption) process is not constant
all the time because of the complex heat and mass transfer process. With a shorter cycle time, the
adsorbate conveyed that mainly exists near the surface of the adsorbent bed, the speed of adsorption (or
desorption) is fast, so the cooling capacity is higher, on the other hand, the quantity of x is less, so the heat of
adsorption (or desorption) exchanged outside is less also. However, the heat quantity includes the sensible
heat of the bed shell and the heat transfer medium which are certain, therefore, the COP is not able to be
larger.
3.3. Packing coecient
In order to nd out the distance between theoretical and real cycles in adsorption refrigeration (and heat
pump), we introduce a new parameter: packing coecient. According to the traces of temperature and
pressure of the adsorbent bed in a cycle, a PX diagram can be drawn to describe a real cycle. With their
limits of pressure and adsorbent ratio, another PX diagram is shown together for example in Figure 7.
INVESTIGATION OF ADSORPTION REFRIGERATION 1161
1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res., 22, 11571163 (1998)
Figure 6. PX diagram with dierent cycle times
Figure 7. Diagram of real and theoretical cycle
Therefore, the packing coecient is dened as
"
Area
''
Area
'"''''
"

''
Pd

\\\\
Pd
(10)
Packing coecient reects the level of a real cycle close to a theoretical one in a corresponding condition.
It helps in understanding the potential capacity of a real cycle and in making a reasonable operational
procedure to improve its performance. It is inuenced directly by the structure of the system, the character-
istics of adsorbentadsorbate and the conditions of heating and cooling by external sources, etc. In xed
equipment, the value of would be determined by operation. For example, with 60 min of cycle time and 100
of maximum heating temperature, the real COP is relatively high, but the is low at 0.6. The reason for this
is that the processes of adsorption and desorption are far from isobaric lines. If the characteristic of heat and
mass transfer was improved, the COP would be increased too.
Table 3 shows the COP values of experiments described above, with the corresponding theoretical cycles
and packing coedcients. From this table, for shorter cycle times, although the packing coecient is high,
1162 W. WANG E A.
Int. J. Energy Res., 22, 11571163 (1998) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Table 3. COP and packing coecient of real operation
Cycle time Heating tem. Theoretical COP Packing Real
(minute) (C) coecient COP
1 20 93 0)502 0)84 0)12
2 26 96 0)607 0)79 0)15
3 30 100 0)580 0)81 0)15
4 36 100 0)746 0)79 0)18
5 40 102 0)700 0)76 0)18
6 60 95 0)764 0)60 0)21
7 30 85 1)22 0)74 0)17
8 30 89 1)07 0)72 0)16
9 30 93 0)795 0)81 0)16
10 30 100 0)580 0)81 0)15
the theoretical cycles COP is low, so the real cycles COP is also low. However, for longer cycle times, the
packing coecient is low, but the theoretical cycles COP is high, so the real cycles COP is also high. While
at low heating temperatures, the COP of the real cycle is better, it is mainly because of the better theoretical
cycles COP.
It must be noted that the heat capacities of the adsorbate, the adsorbent and its bed shell, and heat transfer
medium all are important factors relating to COP. The detailed points of these were shown in Ref. [3].
4. DISCUSSIONS
Some experimental results and analyses have been shown above on the adsorption refrigeration with
a single adsorbate bed (generator), which will be valuable as references for the design of other continuous
regenerative systems with two or more generators. In addition, a new parameter, the packing coecient, is
used to illustrate the distance between theoretical and real cycles. According to our experimental data, the
real COP are much smaller than the theoretical ones multiplied by their corresponding packing coecients.
It is related to a lot of factors such as heat capacities of various heat exchanger bodies and heat transfer
medium, heat leak, the structure of system, the operation condition, etc. These are challenges for further
work.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by the United Technologies Carrier, the Hong Kong Fund of UTRC, Shanghai
Science Star Program, Shanghai Shuguang Program, and also partly by the Resesarch Fund of Fok Ying
Tung Education Foundation. The authors thank Dr. Charles BullockEngineering Fellow of Carrier
Corporation, for reviewing this paper.
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2. Pons, M. and Grenier, Ph. (1987), Experimental data on a solar powered ice maker using active carbon and methanol adsorption
pair, J. Solar Eng., 109, 303310.
3. Teng, Y., Wang, R. Z. and Wu, J. Y., (1997), Theoretical study on adsorption refrigeration/heat pump cycles, Appl. Thermal Eng.
17(4), 327338.
4. Wang, R. Z., Jia, J. P., Zhu, Y. H., Teng, Y., Wu, J. Y., Cheng, J. and Wang, Q. B. (1997), Study on a newsolid adsorption refrigeration
pair: active carbon-methanol, rans. ASME, 119, 214218.
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INVESTIGATION OF ADSORPTION REFRIGERATION 1163
1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res., 22, 11571163 (1998)