Solar Cooling

Solar adsorption cooling system: An overview
A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik Citation: J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012); doi: 10.1063/1.3691610 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3691610 View Table of Contents: http://jrse.aip.org/resource/1/JRSEBH/v4/i2 Published by the American Institute of Physics.
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JOURNAL OF RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY 4, 022701 (2012)
Solar adsorption cooling system: An overview

A. Mahesha) and S. C. Kaushik
Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, India (Received 9 December 2011; accepted 23 January 2012; published online 16 March 2012)
In this paper, a review of the performance and development of various solar powered adsorption refrigeration systems is presented here. The review covers the current state of theoretical study, choice of adsorbent-adsorbate, experimental performance study, and further scope of research in adsorption cooling system. Finally, detailed summary and suggestions are outlined for proper utilization of C thermally operated adsorption refrigeration technologies. V 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3691610]
I. INTRODUCTION
As a result of the projected world energy shortage, the use of solar energy for environmental control has received a lot of attention in engineering and science literature.1 Energy shortages and inconsistent power availability cripple societys progress like preservation eld. Refrigeration is particularly an attractive application for solar energy because of the near coincidence of peak cooling loads with the available solar power.2 Almost all modern facilities use energy to generate the power to fulll for lighting, cooling, refrigeration, and other building services. The resulting impact is to increase the fuel cost and the level of CO2 production dramatically. In addition, energy shortages and inconsistent power availability cripple progress in the food preservation eld. Therefore, energy efcient conservation is a vital role for future generation and it can be achieved by using available waste heat or solar energy from a vapor adsorption (VA) system for various cooling applications. Among solar refrigeration alternatives, the solar vapor adsorption system appears to be one of the most promising technologies because it is environmentally friendly with low cost and low maintenance requirements. Hence, the present article looks at the reexamine of existing literature based on performance trends of adsorption cooling systems coupled with solar thermal systems, which are referred to as present and past status of theoretical studies, choice of adsorbentadsorbate pairs, experimental studies, and further scope of research is discussed. It is believed that this literature gives clear cut idea to appraise the feasibility for applying solar energy in thermally driven adsorption cooling system.
II. DESCRIPTION OF VAPOR ADSORPTION SYSTEM
Adsorption is a surface phenomenon which can be classied into two groups: (1) Physical adsorption (Physorption) and (2) Chemical adsorption (Chemisorption). Physorption is a reversible process and mainly caused by dispersion-repulsion (Vander Walls) force and electrostatic forces between adsorbate (gas) molecules and atoms which compose the adsorbent (porous substance) surface. Most of the VA process applicable to thermal or cooling systems mainly utilizes physisorption. The basic adsorption cycle relies on the adsorption of a refrigerant vapor (adsorbate) into an adsorbent bed at low pressure and subsequent desorption at a high pressure by heating the adsorbent bed. In the simplest case, an adsorption refrigerator can be considered as a two
a)
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Electronic mail: maheshiit10@gmail.com. Telephone: 91 9899669886. 4, 022701-1
C V 2012 American Institute of Physics
1941-7012/2012/4(2)/022701/20/$30.00
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A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik
J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)
vessels connected to each other, one of which is lled with adsorbent and adsorbate as shown in Figure 1. At the beginning stage 1, the system is at a low pressure and temperature. The adsorbent bed is ideally always saturated with vapor at this point. The adsorbent bed is heated and refrigerant start to desorb from the adsorbent bed at stage 2, which raises the system pressure. Desorbed refrigerant condenses in the second vessel and rejects heat as a result of condensation. Finally, the hot adsorbent bed (stage 3) is cooled back to ambient temperature at stage 4 causing the refrigerant to readsorb on the bed. The basic of adsorption refrigeration cycle consists of four thermodynamic steps which can be clearly represented by a clapeyron diagram (ln P Vs 1/T) which is represented in Figure 2. The cycle begins at point Ta2 where the maximum amount of refrigerant is absorbed. The adsorbent is at low temperature and at a low pressure at point Ta2. Along the cycle Ta2-Tg1, the adsorbent is heated and desorbs refrigerant vapor isosterically (i.e., at constant total adsorbed mass on the adsorbent). This step is isosteric, because there will be refrigerant ow until the pressure inside the adsorbent bed becomes equal or greater than the pressure of the condenser and the amount of desorbed refrigerant is small relative to the total amount adsorbed. Dmads % 0: i:e mads Continued heating form Tg1Tg2 desorbs more refrigerant, forcing it to the condenser until state Tg2 is attained, at which desorption ceases. The second step is isobaric desorption. Then, the hot adsorbent is cooled isosterically causing adsorption and depressurization (Tg2Ta1). When the pressure drops below Pevp, refrigerant in the evaporator starts to boil and then it ows to the adsorbent bed, producing a cooling effect. Cooling of the adsorbent continues until the bed is saturated with refrigerant, hence completing the cycle. This process (Ta1Ta2) is also isobaric adsorption. Coefcient of performance (COP) of the basic adsorption cycle can be expressed as, COP Qrefri : Qin Qide
Adsorption pairs are one of the most important criteria of any refrigeration system, because working conditions and environmental considerations mainly depend on them. The ideal refrigerant has the following characteristics:3
FIG. 1. Basic adsorption cycles.
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Solar adsorption cooling system
FIG. 2. P-T-x diagrams for basic adsorption cycle.
Low specic heat Low viscosity Good thermal stability High thermal conductivity Chemically stable in the working temperature range The molecular dimension should be small enough to allow energy adsorption Non-toxic, non ammable, and non-corrosive. On the other hand, the ideal adsorbent has the following characteristics: High adsorption and desorption capacity Good thermal conductivity Low specic heat capacity Chemically compatible with choosing refrigerant Reversibility of adsorption process for many cycles.
The details for the selection of adsorbent-adsorbate and its performance are discussed in Sec. IV. The present and past status of theoretical, experimental studies, economic analysis, and further scope of research is discussed in detailed in coming sections.
III. THEORETICAL STUDIES A. Adsorption mechanisms
In order to understand the adsorption phenomenon thoroughly, adsorption equilibrium should be introduced. Adsorption equilibrium is the state in which adsorption and desorption rates are the same. Investigation of adsorption equilibrium is crucial in determining the performance limitations of the adsorption refrigeration cycles. In practice, the maximum capacity of adsorbent cannot be fully utilized because of the mass transfer effect involved in actual uid-solid interaction process. Three models are generally used to describe refrigerant transfer between gaseous and solid phases, i.e., the equilibrium model,4 the solid diffusion model,5 and the linear driven force model (LDF).5 The equilibrium model considers no mass transfer limitations between solid and gas phases, i.e., they are in thermodynamic equilibrium. The adsorption mass transfer rate is
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only related to gaseous pressure and adsorbent temperature through the following adsorption equilibrium equation proposed by Dubinin and Radushkevitch (D-R) at the end of 1947. dx dx ; dt dt (1)
where the adsorption capacity x concentration of refrigerant in bed at temperature T and pressure P,x is the equilibrium adsorption capacity of adsorber which can be given by a D-R equation x x0 expk 2 2 ; (2)
where x0 is the saturated adsorption capacity, k is the characteristic parameter for a given adsorbent/adsorbate pair, and [ is the adsorption potential. Adsorption on non-porous solid is different than adsorption on porous solids; surface adsorption dominates the D-R equation where as micropore adsorption dominates the Polonyi model. This is the reason that promoted the development of the D-R Eq. (1), but the D-R equation has several limitations.6 Mostly applicable for microporous solid with practically homogenous or uniform microstructures, Derived from Henrys law at low pressure, Valid for degree of micropore lling higher than 0.15. Later, Dubinin and Astakhov (D-A) modied the D-R equation. The D-A equation can be expressed as n Tad 1 ; x x0 k Tsat
(3)
where Tsat is the saturation temperature, Tad is the adsorbent bed temperature, and k and n are the adsorption parameters depending on the material of the adsorbent-adsorbate pairs. In fact, due to diffusion through intra-particle macropores and micropores, which is a slow process, the two phases of gas and solid could not reach equilibrium instantly, but only after a certain time, depending on the adsorbent-adsorbate pair used. For this reason, mass transfer kinetics be incorporated into the model to verify whether the equilibrium assumption is justied.7 The LDF model can be used to describe mass transfer between moving and stationary phases in adsorption processes, which is derived from a solid diffusion model based on the assumption made by Gluekauf.8 In the LDF model expressed by the difference of the amount adsorbed (q), and the maximum amount adsorbed (q0) in equilibrium at certain pressure condition. dq Km q0 q; dt 15Ds Ea Km 2 Ds Dso ; Rp RT (4)
where Rp is the radius of the particle, Ds is the surface diffusivity of particle, and Dso is the pre-exponential constant.
B. Thermodynamic model
Among the different models, thermodynamic model is the simplest and in which details of heat transfer are not considered. According to the thermodynamic point of view, vapor adsorption refrigeration cycle consist of four steps which are represented below along with basic adsorption refrigeration cycles in Figure 3.
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(1) (2) (3) (4)
Isosteric heating (constant concentration) Isobaric desorption (heat of adsorption sensible heating) Isosteric cooling (constant concentration) Isobaric adsorption (heat of adsorption sensible cooling).
1. Isosteric heating
The temperature of adsorbent bed is increased from Ta2 to Tg1 (shown in Figure 2) by heating the adsorbent bed. The heat transferred to the adsorbent bed to increase the temperature of the bed from Ta2 to Tg1 is given by the following equation: Qih Tg1
Ta2
mCpad bent xCpad bate mad mat Cp ad mat dt:
(5)
2. Isobaric desorption
After the isosteric heating of the adsorbent bed, the heating process is continued and desorption process is started and the pressure of the cycle remains constant. Qide Tgz
Tg2
mCpad bent xmin Cpad bate mad mat Cpad mat dt
Tg2 mDH:dx:
Tg1
(6)
3. Isosteric cooling
Qic
Ta1
Tg2
mCpad bent xmin Cpad bate mad mat Cpad mat dt:
(7)
When the adsorption bed reaches its maximum bed temperature Tg2, desorption ceases and the adsorbent is allowed to cool down. During this process, decrease in temperature Tg2 to Ta1 induces decrease in pressure from Pcon to Pevap.
4. Isobaric adsorption
The adsorbent bed is connected to the evaporator, and adsorption evaporation occurs while the adsorbent is cooled from Ta1 to Ta2. During this cooling period, heat is withdrawn to decrease the temperature of the adsorbent. Qiad Ta2
Ta1
mCpad bent xCpad bate mad mat Cp ad mat dt
Ta2 mDH:dx:
Ta1
(8)
The useful refrigeration effect which is the energy that must be supplied to the evaporator, Qrefri, is calculated as the latent heat of evaporation of the cycled adsorbate, minus the sensible heat of the adsorbate that is entering the evaporator at condensation temperature. Qrefri mxmax xmin LTe Tcon
Tevp
Cpl Tdt;
(9)
where Cpl is the specic heat of the adsorbate in the liquid phase and L is the latent heat of evaporation of adsorbate. On the basis of the above described equations, the COP for cooling operation can be calculated as the ratio of the useful refrigeration effect produced and heat input to the adsorbent bed
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FIG. 3. Schematic representation of the basic adsorption refrigeration system.
COP
Qrefri : Qith Qide
(10)
In literature, theoretical frameworks of adsorption cooling systems with their mathematical explanations have been widely discussed. The relevant studies are chronologically summarized in this article in concise style. In 1988, Douss et al. were developed a numerical model for simple heat and mass recovery cycles with zeolite NaXwater pair.9 According to the numerical prediction, the simple cycle and heat-mass recovery cycle reached the COP 1.38 and 1.56, respectively. The authors stated that condensation and evaporation pressures had the largest effect on the COP values among adsorption bed temperatures and other auxiliary components design parameters such as heat transfer coefcients. In 1995, Zheng et al. investigated the effects of operating conditions of a heat recovery adsorption refrigeration system.10 In this theoretical study, activated carbonammonia pair was used. Conditions like maximum bed temperature and ambient temperature were analyzed. The optimized results showed that increasing maximum bed temperature from 180 to 250 C increased the COP by 20%. Moreover, as the ambient temperature increased, COP decreased. One more theoretical analysis was conducted by Zheng et al. (1995) for activated carbonammonia pair of two-bed refrigeration system.11 In this study, the effects of several parameters related to cycle time and heat transfer coefcients on the cycle performance were investigated. Increasing the adsorbent bed heat capacity, decreased the COP and cooling capacity of the cycle whereas increasing the mass of heat transfer uid within the adsorbent bed increases COP slightly, but decreases cooling capacity considerably. Another model of simple and heat recovery cycle was developed by Teng et al. in 1997.12 In this model, the effects of the several parameters in DubininAstakhov (D-A) equation on cycle performance were investigated. Besides the effects of maximum bed temperature, evaporation temperature and heat capacity were analyzed. As expected, COP values of the activated carbonmethanol pair increased by increasing the maximum bed temperature varied between 90 and 140 C, and the evaporation temperature varied between 20 and 15 C. In this analysis, maximum COP value was reported approximately 1.5. Sun et al. in 1997 developed an adsorption heat pump model based on only heat transfer equations and excluding mass transfer.13 Herein, zeoliteammonia pair was used with constant heat of adsorption value for analyses. The model considered two-dimensional heat transfer within the adsorbent bed: axial for heat transfer uid only (excluding axial heat transfer for adsorbent) and radial heat transfer. This two-dimensional model was solved with a number of assumptions with ordinary differential equations. Accordingly, the authors reported a maximum COP of 0.86 for the following condition: maximum bed temperature at 260 C, condensation temperature of 40 C, evaporation temperature at 5 C, and ambient temperature at 20 C.
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Wang et al. in 2000 (Ref. 14) predicted the performance of solar powered ice maker coupled with water heater through energy analysis with an annual year. In this investigation, activated carbonmethanol pair was preferred as working pair. The results showed that the maximum COP of the refrigeration cycle was 0.51 for the period from October to December according to the simulated operating conditions. The simulation results were higher than the experimental results in which the COP was 0.386 in two days in December 1998. A solar adsorptive ice maker model is presented and experimentally validated with an innovative approach of collector condenser technology.15 The model rst was used to identify convection heat transfer coefcients on the upper plate outside of the collector, (hav) and outside the condenser, (har) and the equivalent heat transfer coefcient inside the condenser (i.e., equivalent heat transfer coefcient means the global heat transfer coefcient including convection, gas conduction, and radiation between the rear adsorbent bed and the inner condenser plate). Then, to study the sensitivity of the daily ice production (DIP) vis-a-vis critical physical parameters of the unit and to estimate the limit of the collectorcondenser technology. As from the predicted results, the authors reported the DIP increases with increasing har and decreases slightly beyond optimum with increasing hav. According to this model, DIP reached to 11.5 kg/m2 of collector with corresponding COP of 19% reached with best condition of physical and meteorological parameters. In an investigation made by Alam et al., (2000), two dimensional heat transfer equations were established for both the uid and adsorbent sides.16 This study analyzed a set of nondimensional parameters, which presented the different physical design and operating parameters of the system. A parametric study was also conducted to show the effect of different nondimensional parameters on the system performance and their results were similar to the results obtained by Hajji and Khallou (1995) (Ref. 17) as well as Zheng et al. (1995).18 In a novel approach, a uniform pressure model describing the heat and mass transfer in the adsorbent bed for a at plate solar ice maker was presented by Li and Wang in 2003.19 The model predicts the dynamic performance of an intermittent adsorption cycle using activated carbonmethanol as pairs. The numerical results show that the proposed model predicted the dynamic response of the solar solid adsorption system with good accuracy. The errors between the calculated and measured results are less than 4%. The authors suggested that this model is a good tool for optimizing the adsorption system driven by solar energy. Solar powered adsorption (SPA) refrigerator using an evacuated tube for thermal insulation was numerically made by Li et al. in 2003 with zeolitewater pair as an adsorber.20 Generally, because of the limit to the mass of adsorbent in an evacuated tube, a number of evacuated tubes are needed to meet the given cooling capacity. They are usually assembled in parallel, thus radiation heat transfer will occur between two adjacent tubes. As shown in Figure 4, the small area dF1 on tube 1 has a range of radiation (arc BFC) on tube 2. The angle factor is calculated as follows: XdF1;dF2 Cosb Cosc dF2 : p r2 (11)
FIG. 4. Radiation between two adjacent tubes.
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The authors numerically computed relationships between the diameter of evacuated tube collector (ETC) and performance with respect to distance among two adjacent tube centers, when the diameter is equal to 70 mm, both the COP and the cooling capacity reach their maximum values 0.25 and 4377 kJ m2, respectively. Although whose diameters are less than 70 mm can show higher values, their COP and cooling capacity may be lower due to the smaller mass quantity of the adsorbent. The investigator nally suggested that structure parameters, such as the diameter of the evacuated tubes, the mass quantity of adsorbent, and the distance between two adjacent tube centers, have important effects on the maximum average temperature and the performance of the system. A theoretical study of the two-stage adsorption cooling cycle was developed by Alam et al. in 2004.21 Silica gelwater pair was selected as in the theoretical study, and effects of cycle time, maximum bed and condensation temperature, and mass of adsorbent on the system performance were investigated. According to the results, COP values increased, achieved a peak value and then decreased as the maximum bed temperature increased. Cooling capacity increased with decreasing cycle time and increasing the mass of adsorbent, while with longer cycle times, better COP values could be attained. Finally, as the condensation temperature decreased, both COP and cooling capacity increased. Wang et al. in 2005 developed an analytical model for a two-bed adsorption cooling cycle with silica gelwater pair.22 Effects of heat and mass recovery and operating temperatures on the system performance were investigated. The highest COP was obtained when the maximum bed temperature was 6585 C range. The maximum predicted COP of the cycle was 0.65 when the condensation temperature was 20 C. Another theoretical model for solar-powered regenerative adsorption refrigeration was developed by Lambert in 2007.23 In this study, activated carbonammonia pair with CaCl2 additions were used. As a result of CaCl2 addition, the adsorption capacity of the pair increased by 35% on average. According to predicted results, a maximum COP of 1.60 was reported. Additionally, different types of solar collectors (single or double-glazed at plate with or without coating, evacuated tube, and parabolic concentrator) were compared under certain conditions and the highest solar thermal efciency was obtained from an ETC while parabolic concentrator had second highest solar thermal efciency. A two-dimensional numerical heat and mass transfer model that accounted for heat transfer limitations was developed by Liu and Leong in 2008 for a transient simple adsorption cooling cycle.24 The investigators claimed that the condensation pressure is not constant as time progresses for the isosteric process due to heat transfer limitations. Contradictory to the authors stated that the simulation results showed that the pressure in the condenser does not change signicantly for the simple adsorption cycle and COP increases as the mass ow rate within the condenser increases. Fadar et al. in 2009 examined numerically of a continuous adsorption refrigeration system consisting of two adsorbent beds and powered by parabolic trough solar collector (PTC).25 Activated carbon as adsorbents and ammonia as refrigerant were used in the study. A predictive model accounting for heat balance of the solar collector components and instantaneous heat and mass transfer in adsorbent bed was presented. The validity of the theoretical model was tested by comparison with experimental data of the temperature evolution within the adsorber during isosteric heating phase. A good agreement is obtained. The system performance is assessed in terms of specic cooling power (SCP), refrigeration cycle (COPcycle), and solar COP, which were evaluated by a cycle simulation computer program. Under the climatic conditions of daily solar radiation being about 14 MJ per 0.8 m2 (17.5 MJ/m2) and operating conditions of evaporating temperature, Tev 0 C, condensing temperature, Tcon 30 C and a heat source temperature of 100 C, the results indicate that the system could achieve an SCP of the order of 104 W/kg, a refrigeration cycle COP of 0.43, and it could produce a daily useful cooling of 2515 kJ per 0.8 m2 of collector area, while its gross solar COP could reach 0.18. A dynamic heat and mass transfer model was established by the Wu et al. (2009) based on the LDF model.7 The model was solved using the nite difference method, and the performance of the adsorber and condenser/evaporator of the module was analyzed. The calculated results were validated with experimental data and good agreement was observed. A solar powered two-bed adsorption cooling cycle with heat and mass recovery was modeled for silica gelwater
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pair by Luo et al. in 2010.26 The COP values were predicted using energy balances with a maximum bed temperature range of 55-90 C. The results predicted that a COP of the system higher than 0.25 can be achieved under fair solar radiation and with an evacuated tube collector. Results also stated that the evacuated tube collector always has higher thermal efciencies than the at plate collector for the investigated cases. A silica gelwater adsorption chiller integrated with a closed wet cooling tower was developed and numerically studied.27 A transient one-dimensional model was proposed and validated using experimental data. The predicted results agreed well with the experimental measurement. Based on this reliable mathematical model, the following conclusions were achieved: the cooling capacity and COP of the chiller are 10.76 kW and 0.51, respectively, the cycle mass of heat and mass recovery cycle is increased by 34.9%. A forward-looking study on the operating characteristic of silica gelwater adsorption chiller driven by solar energy was introduced by Zhang et al. (2011) with the help of a lumped parameter model.28 MATLABSIMULINK, as a high-performance computing and programming tool, was used to simulate the operating characteristics of the chiller. The effects of the hot water tank capacity, the cycle time, and the initial hot water temperature on the performance of the chiller were analyzed when the chiller was driven by a stable heat source and solar energy, respectively. The simulation results indicated that when the chiller was driven by solar energy, the open circulation of the hot water with a short cycle time and the closed circulation of hot water with a longer cycle time were better. The average refrigerating capacity and the average COP in a day are about 6.04 kW and 0.458, respectively. The adsorption refrigeration system mainly depends on the heat and mass transfer in the inside of the system. In this view, Hassan et al. (2011) represented a mathematical model using activated carbon methanol (ACM) pair and it stand for heat and mass transfer in the adsorption bed, the condenser, and the evaporator.29 The simulation technique takes into account the variations of ambient temperature and solar radiation along the day. Furthermore, the local pressure and local thermal conductivity variations in space and time inside the tubular reactor are investigated as well. It found that, the solar coefcient of performance and the specic cooling power of the system were 0.211 and 2.326, respectively. In the same manner, Zhao et al. (2011) was validated a dynamic mathematical model under the non-uniform pressure assumption and the introduction of a transient boundary condition of the diffusion equation.30 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 showed 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. Various theoretical results have been discussed in the above section and it also gives a tool to optimize of adsorption systems driven by solar heat or other low grade heat source temperature.
IV. CHOICE OF ADSORBENTADSORBATE PAIRS
Adsorption refrigeration is achieved using a combination of adsorbate and adsorbent. Signicant improvements of such system performances may be realized through using of different adsorbent and adsorbate materials. The selection of any pair of adsorbent-adsorbate combination depends on certain desirable characteristics of their constituents, including the afnity for each other. These characteristics range from their thermodynamic and chemical properties to their physical properties. A number of studies have been carried out, both experimentally and theoretically for selection of adsorbent-adsorbate material; but the cost for selection of adsorbentadsorbate materials still makes them non-competitive for commercialization. Therefore, some investigations are focused on cost reduction and on increasing the efciency of the machines. This section summarizes the most widely used working pairs are zeolitewater, activated carbonmethanol, silica gelwater, and activated carbonammonia. In addition, the performance of adsorbent-adsorbate pair is reviewed based on heat source temperature.
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A. Zeolitewater
The development of sorption refrigeration systems powered by zeolitewater emerged in 1978 following the pioneering work of Tchernev.31 Then, in 1982, signicant efforts were made by Tchernev to develop a solar-powered natural zeolite-water system. Natural zeolite, with a heat of adsorption of 2.8 MJ/kg, was found to be more suitable for cooling systems than the synthetic zeolite having a heat of adsorption of 4.2 MJ/kg. This is due to the fact that with lower heat of adsorption, the adsorbent bed can be cooled more effectively, which in turn results in better adsorption of refrigerant. In the same manner, Tchernev (1982) fabricated and tested a 100 dm3 zeolitewater solar powered refrigerator. The system contained 50 kg of zeolite per square meter. For a solar energy input of 6 kWh, the refrigerator produced 900 Wh of cooling per square meter of collector area with a COP of 0.15. At the end of the 1980 s, in France, Grenier et al. (1988) (Ref. 32) designed a solar adsorption air conditioning system using zeolite-water working pair under mass of 22 to 15 kg/m2. This system was designed to refrigerate a 12 m3 room for food preservation with a collector area of 13.10 m2. In this study, the collector temperature varied from 93 to 103 C correspondingly the COP of the system varies from 0.10 to 0.11, respectively. The temperature difference of 20 C between the outside ambient and the cold room was varied. The adsorbent bed is lled with 140 kg of 13 Zeolite grains and 185 kg of water was charged into the system.33 The cooling power ranging from 3.0 to 4.2 kW had a COP of 0.21 under the suitable heat source temperature of 220250 C, which is fair enough to make the comfort level. In an innovative approach, a truck air-conditioning driven by engine waste heat was presented by Dong Wu (2011).35 The working pair of 13X Zeolitewater was used with the mass of 45 kg and 10.50 kg, respectively. Under the typical condition of the heat source temperature of 325 C, the value of COP and SCP namely 0.26 and 95.0 W/kg, respectively. A thermally powered prototype adsorption cooling system using natural zeolitewater was investigated by Ismail Solmus in 2011.34 The mass and volume of working pair were 1.87 kg and 2.5 liter. The mean COP and SCP values of the experimental prototype were 0.25 and 6.4 W/kg, respectively for the heat source temperature of 150 C. Form the above summarization, the present investigation found out that zeolite have signicantly larger quantities and high temperature would be required if water is the adsorbate since only a modest amount of adsorbate is desorbed in going from room temperature to at plate solar collector temperature. Table I shows some of the achieved performance of solar adsorption refrigeration system. As a result, the zeolitewater pair is not suitable for at plate solar collector adsorption refrigeration system. However, zeolites have another unique property in that their adsorption isotherms have extremely nonlinear pressure dependence, as reported by Tchernev (1982), which is of important criteria in solar refrigeration applications.
B. Activated carbonmethanol
Activated carbonmethanol is one of the most widely used working pair in adsorption system because of their large cyclic adsorption capacity, low desorption temperature, low adsorption temperature, and high latent heat of methanol. In this way, Table II shows the some appraisal results of activated carbon-methanol refrigeration system. In this concern, last twenty four years back Pons and Guilleminot (1986) studied a prototype solar powered ice maker with an activated carbon/methanol pair.36 The solar collector area of 6 m2 contains on the whole, 130 kg of activated carbon produced the net COP was 0.12 for the maximum heat source temperature of 95 C, which reported this machine one of the most efcient solar ice maker in 1986. Li and Sumathy37 was loaded 17 kg of activated carbon inside the collector to form the adsorption bed, which is a little less than the specic loading reported by Pons and Guilleminot in 1986. At last, the system achieved the COP of about 0.1 to 0.12. In a novel approach to increase the overall efciency of the adsorption icemaker assisted with prototype hybrid system was designed by Wang et al.14 The activated carbon and methanol was laden with 22 kg and 25 kg, respectively, for the heat source temperature of 98 C to
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91 C, corresponding values of COP increase from 0.38 to 0.43. The daily ice production was about 10 kg when the insolation was about 22 MJ/m2, which is higher than Wang et al. (1998) earlier study.38 A forward-looking way, the temperature gradient within the adsorbent bed and cooling performance were analyzed.39 These authors deduce that in order to improve the performance of this system, the heat transfer properties of the adsorber needed to be enhanced. This could be achieved by increasing the number of ns or using consolidated adsorbent. Accordingly, this ice-maker had a COP reached for 0.42 to 0.45 and produced between 5 to 6 kg of ice per m2 of collector when charged with 22 kg of activated carbon. This study is much improvement than Pons and Guillminot (1986) analysis.36 An adsorption ice-maker was tested by way of 40 kg of AC and 7.0 l of methanol40 at Burkina Faso by Buchter et al. (2003) for the heat source temperature from 29100 C. The outcome of this prototype was compared with similar system of previously studied by Pons and Grenier in Orsay (1987) (Ref. 82) and Boubakri et al. (1992) in Morocco.41,42 The machine (Burkina Faso) presented a cooling performance of about 28% and 35% higher than that of the machine tested in Orsay and Morocco, respectively. The limitation of the system was mainly due to the ambient temperature, an increase in the ambient temperature beyond 23 C reduced the system performance signicantly. Wang et al. (2003) tested two different types of adorbers in which two types of bed are lled with compressively solidied activated carbon and another one is lled with granular activated carbon (AC).43 The authors nally reported that the performance of solidied AC adsorber is much better than that of granular AC adsorber since the heat transfer coefcient is much better than granular AC. Accordingly, COP and SCP of the granular AC were 0.125 and 16 W/kg correspondingly for the granular. Thus, granular AC demise the COP and SCP were 0.104 and 13.1 W/kg, respectively, for the heat source temperature of 110 C. Ferreira Leite presented44 characterization and pre-dimensioning of an adsorption chiller in which each adsorber consist of with 25 kg of activated carbon and 72 kg of methanol, respectively. The effective COP was obtained to be 0.5, which is relatively low, in relation to that of conventional vapor compression systems.
C. Silica gelwater
Silica gel is a partially dehydrated form of polymeric colloidal silicic acid. The adsorptive property of silica gel arises from its high porosity and its pores are sub-microscopic scale approximately 20$200. The silica-gel-water is an alternative method, allowing cycles to be driven by relatively lower driving heat-source temperatures. Table II illustrated the previous researchers achieved performance results of siligca gelwater adsorption refrigeration system. Hildbrand et al. (2004) focused a high performance new solar powered adsorption refrigerator.45 This nal result shows COP varies between 0.10 and 0.25 with a mean value of 0.16. These values are higher than those obtained by earlier solar powered refrigerators (0.100.12). The adsorber consists of 12 parallel tubes (72.5 mm in diameter) that contain 78.8 kg mass of silica gel. Based on the above research, Liu et al. (2005) developed an adsorption46 chiller could be regenerated by hot water between 75 C and 90 C. The whole chiller contained 52.8 kg of silica gel divided between two adsorbent beds, which operated out of phase and thus, produced constant cooling. Experiments with the rst prototype showed that a cooling power of 3.56 kW and a COP of 0.26 could be obtained when the mass and heat recovery processes were employed under the following operating conditions: an evaporation temperature of 7.0 C, a heat sink temperature of 28 C, and a heat source temperature of 85 C. Novel silica gelwater adsorption chillers47 with two single bed systems were built and tested in Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). Each adsorber contains 52 kg of silica gel. As the results, the refrigerating capacity and the COP of the chiller are, respectively, 8.69 kW and 0.388 for the heat source temperature of 82.5 C. There is an improvement at least 12% for the COP compared with the former chiller (2005). In the same way, contemporary research on silica gel water adsorption chiller was built in SJTU in 2009. The performance of the chiller
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TABLE I. Some achieved performance of solar adsorption refrigeration system. Authors Tchernev
31
Mass of adsorbent-adsorbate pair 50 kg/m

2
COP 0.15 0.10 0.21 0.25 0.26
Heat source temperature 93 C to 103 C 220 C250 C 150 C 325 C
Grenier et al.32 Lu et al.33 Ismail Solmus34 Dong Wu

35
15-22 kg/m2 140 kg/m2 1.87 kg/m2 45-10.5 kg/m2
was tested with 104 kg mass of silica gel with driven heat source temperature of 82 C and compared with former adsorption chiller. The results show that COP increases to 0.43 while the cooling power is about 11.0 kW. Compared with that of the former chiller, the present system COP is increases by 20%. In an innovative approach, a compact adsorption chiller integrated with a closed wet cooling tower was27 designed by Chen et al. (2010). The system performance was investigated against the heat source temperature of 85 C with 65 kg of silica gel and 169 kg of water for corresponding COP and SCP were 0.51 and 10.76 Kw, respectively. One more adsorption chiller without vacuum valve was manufactured and48 experimentally studied by Chen et al. in 2010. Fin-tube heat exchangers are adopted as adsorbers. Each adsorber contains 27 adsorbent units. Each adsorber contains 48.5 kg of silica gel. The cooling power and COP were 9.60 kW and 0.49, respectively, when the heat source temperature of 82.0 C. The present investigation compared to Chen et al. (2010) existing system27 based on mass of adsorbent, present system showed better efciency. Luo et al. (2010) designed and constructed26 a solar powered adsorption chiller with a mass of silica gel 112 kg. The chiller was produced a cooling power of about 66-90 W/m2 and daily solar cooling COP is about 0.10.13 for a heat source temperature of 65-85 C. Farid et al. (2011) deal with the performance investigation of a silica gel/water based on two-stage, four-bed adsorption chiller with different mass allocation49 whereas heat source temperature of 90 C. The COP improvement ratios for the mass allocation 3:2 are 4.618%, 3.253%, 2.808%, 0.518%, and 1.752% (decreasing). In addition, the COP improvement ratios for the mass allocation 2:1 are 7.07%, 5.13%, 4.04%, 0.71%, and 4.94% (decreasing). But the COP decreasing ratios for the mass allocation ratio 2:3 are 6.31%, 4.87%, 3.09%, 0.42%, and 7.53% (increasing). A low-grade waste heat driven silica gel-water adsorption chiller was successfully designed50 and tested by Grisel in (2010). The average cooling power was 3.6 kW, COP was 0.62, and the power density was 17 kW/m3 for the system as whole.
D. Activated carbonammonia
Explorations in the use of charcoalammonia are apparently more recent mainly during the 1990 s. Jones (1993) used a novel carbon-moulding technique and incorporated a thermal waveregeneration concept; a small unit consuming 0.51 kg of charcoal produced 293 W cooling with
TABLE II. Adsorbentadsorbate pair used in the solar adsorption refrigeration system. Adsorbent-adsorbate pair Silica gelwater Silica gelwater Activated carbon-methanol Activated carbon-methanol Activated carbon-methanol Activated carbon-methanol Domestic charcoalmethanol Activated carbon-ammonia System COP 0.16 0.100.13 0.10.12 0.10.12 0.10.12 0.16 0.140.16 0.05 Reference 45 85 36 and 83 41 and 42 86 87 71 and 88 89
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ammonia as the adsorbate.51 A small solar adsorption refrigerator was built52 and tested under preliminary level by Critoph (1994). The collector contains 17 kg of active carbon and 1.60 kg of ammonia was tested for 150 C heat sources. It produced up to 4 kg of ice per day in a diurnal cycle. In this investigation, COP was varied between 0.330.24. Similarly, a low cost rotary regenerative adsorption air conditioning system53 using monolithic carbonammonia was built by Tamainot-Telto and Critoph (1997). The total mass of monolithic carbon in the generator is about 40 g and 16 g of ammonia refrigerant, respectively. The typical COP of the system varied from 0.200.50. Mass recovery can play an important role to better the performance of an adsorption refrigeration pair of activated carbonammonia.54 The inuence of mass recovery is mainly dominated by the sorption characteristics of the pair. The total volume of the ammonia was about 500 liter and 31.7 kg of activated carbon. The COP of the activated carbon/ammonia adsorption refrigeration cycle might be were varied from 0.09-0.12 with the mass recovery process due to different working conditions. Fadar et al. (2009) proposed a novel solar adsorptive cooling system coupled with a parabolic trough collector.55 The authors were used 5-30 kg of activated carbon and its performance was tested for the heat source temperature of 70170 C. From the investigation, the authors reported that, COP increases with increases in adsorbent mass and once the adsorbent mass reaches a critical value (146 kg of AC), the COP decreases. The reason is that the increase in adsorbent mass induces adsorption of high quantity of ammonia initially at adsorption phase and hence, desorption of large amounts of ammonia in subsequent desorption process. This produces more cooling and consequently, results in high COPs. Nevertheless, beyond this optimal value of 14.5 kg, the adsorbent bed is heated, but the heat adsorbed is not sufcient to desorb the required amount ammonia. In order to develop a consolidated solidied adsorbent with better heat transfer56 and mass transfer performance was developed and studied by Wang et al. (2011). For this investigation, solidied AC and granular AC was used. It stated that granular activated carbon was better than that of solidied because of the reduced mass transfer of ammonia at low saturated pressure. The working pair of activated carbonammonia was developed57 by Miles and Shelton in 1996. The COP obtained varied between 1.19 and 0.42, for ambient temperatures from 20 C to 35 C. Another kind of heat regenerative cycle was suggested by Critoph (1998), in which the refrigerant served as a heat transfer medium.58 A thermodynamic model presented by the author predicted a COP of 0.95 with an evaporator temperature of 0 C and a condensation temperature of 42 C. Wade et al. (1989) simulated a regenerative adsorption cycle with eight beds that could recover 76% of the waste energy from the adsorption process.59 The previous work was the base for the design of a prototype with four beds that was used to produce cooling at 136 C.60 The energy input necessary to produce 1.0 W of cooling in this prototype was 76.6 W, which was much lower than the 165 W required in the system without heat regeneration. However, the difculties and practical disadvantages of activated carbonammonia systems are the high pressure requirement, resulting in the bulkiness of the refrigerator, and the corrosive nature of the refrigerant, ammonia. The problem of the great bulk of large systems can be avoided by the development of rapid cycling units.
V. EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF ADSORPTION COOLING SYSTEM
The design of solar collectors is a signicant factor for solar cooling applications. It depends on the level of temperature required by the process. For example, an efcient waterammonia absorption solar refrigerator requires a temperature of collector around 150 C. This can be performed generally by collectors which are either parabolic or with evacuated tubes.61 The Table III. demonstrated the selected performance attainment of different collector systems. Adsorptive units require a temperature of the collector around 100 C; these can be easily achieved by at-plate collectors, which is an advantage. Consequently, selection of solar collector is a vital role in the adsorption refrigeration system. In this context, this section review is based on the dimension and design aspect of the solar cooling system.
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A. Flat plate collector
At the end of the 1980 s, Grenier et al. (1988) studied a solar adsorption air conditioning system that had used 20 m2 of solar at plate collector.32 A single glass cover was used 3 cm ahead of the front face of the collectors. The system has attained maximum heat source temperature of 130 C. This system was designed to refrigerate a 12 m3 room for food preservation and the cold room could store 1000 kg of vegetables with a rotation of 130 kg per day for a temperature difference of 20 C between the outside ambient temperature and the cold room when insolation received by the solar collector was about 22 MJ/m2. The COP in this case was 0.10. In an effort was made to utilize solar heat, Sakoda and Suzuki (1986) achieved a solar COP of about 0.2 with solar at plate collector dimensions of 500 500 50 mm.62 Attempts were taken to increase the heat transfer in the collector was divided into four blocks by ten heat transfer ns of 50 mm 50 mm square and 0.5 mm thick. This kind of arrangement got maximum bed temperature of 80 C. In addition, present system performance was estimated based on changing various design parameters like effect of selective surface with and without a glass cover and selective surface with and without two glass cover. Under the above said condition, the COP was 0.32 and 0.30, respectively. To enhance the heat transfer inside the adsorbent bed, Li et al. (2002) arranged a number of ns in the two at plate collectors.39 Each collector was charged with 22 kg of activated carbon with a surface area of 0.75 m2. The top surface of the adsorbent bed is coated with black paint to enhance receiving solar ux radiation. Within this type of setup, the adsorbent bed reaches maximum temperature of 110 C. The experimental result showed that for this kind of arrangement, the COP was uctuated beyond 0.120.14 and approximately 56 kg of ice/m2 of area. Several experiments were carried out by Li et al. (2002) with a different collector area of 1.5 and 0.5 m2 viz. and achieved the COP of 0.14 and 0.147, respectively. In a creative way, Boubakri et al. (2000) was developed a collectorcondenser technology by using at plate collector.15 The units are mainly composed of a single glassed collector-condenser connected by a exible tube with an evaporator. The collectorcondenser (1 m2, 90 mm thick, and 20 tilted) was made to two identical stainless steel shells. A grid holds 20 kg of activated carbon in the upper shell, which plays the role of solar collector. The rear shell of the collectorcondenser plays the role of air cooled condenser with external ns (7.5 m2). In this experiment, the collector reaches the maximum temperature of 110 C. The authors nd out that this technology leads to a 40% reduction of adsorbent rearless. It leads to affect the system performance like (a) a better heating of the collector (b) a poor cooling. This poor cooling effect limits the improvement of daily ice production. Many parameters that affect the performance of solar refrigerator and ice mass, such as solar radiation, wind speed, ambient temperature, numbers of glass cover,63 coating material etc., cited by Li and Wang (2002). Among these parameters, two parameters are most important; they are the number of glazings and the selective coating material. Usually, the increase of glazing number is limited by collector structure and dimension, in common practice, not more than two or three glazings. In this view, the authors found out that the effects of COP and ice mass when single glass cover and double glass covers are used, respectively, 0.116, 7.47 kg and 0.113, 10.51 kg. In addition, the effects on COP and ice mass when black coating material and selective coating material are used and obtained results were 0.116, 7.47 kg and 0.145, 9.37 kg, respectively. Into the accumulation with the effects on COP and ice mass when double glass covers and selective coating material are used simultaneously and got the results of 0.116, 7.47 kg and 0.193, 12.43 kg correspondingly. The authors nally conclude that in the practical design of solar refrigerator should use double glass covers and selective material to improve the characteristics of solar refrigerator. Instead of two valves are necessary to fulll the adsorption and desorption processes of a basic refrigeration system, a no valve, at plate solar ice maker was developed by Li et al. (2004) in China which performance was tested for the real solar radiation condition.64 In this system, there are no any reservoirs, connecting valve, and throttling valve, and the structure of
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TABLE III. Design aspects of solar cooling system with typical achievements. Reference 62 32 67 90 22, 46, and 65 2 36 and 83 Type of collector Flat plate Flat plate Heat pump Flat plate Natural gas or liquid petroleum gas Evacuated tube Flat plate Collector area 0.4 m
2
COP 0.40 0.10 0.15 0.36 0.40 0.35 0.10.12
20 m2 2 m2 2 m2 150 m2 6 m2
the system is simple. The adsorbent bed was made of at plate stainless steel box having a surface area of 1.0 m2 and also 19 kg of adsorbent was charged and selective coating was used in the system. The results showed that 6.01.0 kg of ice was produced under the condition of about 1720 MJ/m2 solar radiation; the COP of this system was about 0.13-0.15. Finally, the authors suggested that no valve solar ice maker is expected to be economical in west of China in the near future. In no valve concept, Liu et al. (2005) designed for simplied construction of the adsorption refrigeration system.65 The advantage of this system is there is no refrigerant valve. This feature reduced the cost of the chiller and made it more reliable as there were minimum moving parts that could lead to air inltration. The whole chiller contained 52.8 kg of silica gel divided between two adsorbent beds, thus produced constant cooling power of 3.56 kW and a COP of 0.26 were obtained under the following operating conditions: an evaporation temperature of 7.0 C, a heat sink temperature of 28 C, and a heat source temperature of 85 C. Louajari et al. (2011) presented the performance coefcient of the machine according to with and without ns in the solar at plate collector.66 The COP increases from 7.5% corresponding to a tube without ns to 11.1% which corresponds to a tube with ns. Owing motivation for that cycled mass of the refrigerant is also higher than the one of the tubes without ns. It results with ns in the solar collector increases COP of the system. In order to improve the heat transfer effectiveness in the adsorption bed, nned tubes were used instead of a simple at-bed collector (Dieng and Wang, 2001), which had an outer diameter of 53 mm and a length of 0.2 m.67 The system was tested at various operating conditions, when the condensation temperature and regeneration temperature were 20 C and5.0 C, respectively. In an another way, Anyanwu and Ezakwe68 also designed a combined at-plate type collector/generator/adsorber technology whose effective exposed area was 1.5 m2 with the efciency of 11.6%16.4%. The maximum temperature was attained in the collector about 109 C with an area of 1.2 m2. The useful overall COP ranged over 0.0070.015. Thus, only 2% of the incident solar energy was converted into the refrigeration effect.
B. Compound parabolic collector
Solar adsorption cooling systems are usually based on the at plate collector, whereas little attention has been paid to concentrate collectors by Tamainot Telto and Critoph.53 It consists of two compound parabolic collector (CPC) reectors, two adsorbers, and a cover. The width, aperture, and height are, respectively, 420 mm and 658 mm. The concentration ratio of the collector was 2.37. Each absorber was made with 2 m long stainless steel tube and is covered in selective surface. The two adsorbers contain about 400 aluminium ns and about 17 kg of granular carbon. The maximum collector temperature reaches and cooling power value of 173 C and 120 W, respectively, under the solar radiation condition of 820 W/m2. Manuel et al. (2007) presented a CPC collector which separated by four tubular receiver contains the sorption bed using 13.8 kg of activated carbon and where only a portion of the
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receiver is exposed to sunlight.69 The total collection area was 0.55 m2. The prototype was tested during the springer and summer of 2005 in Burgos. The experimental results showed that solar COP range from 0.078 to 0.096. The maximum and minimum bed temperatures were 116 C and 38 C, respectively. In order to increase the desorption temperatures and good cooling effect during the adsorption period at night, Headley et al. (1994) constructed a charcoalmethanol adsorption refrigerator powered by CPC concentrating collectors of concentration ratio 3.9 and aperture area 2.0 m2 was used, but the solar COP achieved was very low,70 of about 0.02, due to the reason the temperatures in excess of 150 C are undesirable since they favour the conversion of methanol to dimethyl ether, a noncondensable gas which inhibit both condensation and adsorption. There was an excessive heating capacity in the system and only 2% of the incident solar radiation was converted to the refrigeration effect. The author reported that system was not economically viable. Khattab (2004) designed an innovative approach to heat the adsorption bed via reectors.71 The testing of the module is mainly focused on the sorption bed, therefore, four types of bed techniques and four reector arrangements to heat the sorption bed were proposed and tested under climatic condition of Cairo (30 latitude). The angles of inclination of the reectors are varied every month to receive maximum solar energy at noon time. Testing module as a refrigerator realize daily ice production of 6.9 and 9.4 kg/m2 and net solar COP of 0.136 and 0.159 in cold and hot climate, respectively. The study has put in evidence the ability of such a system to achieve a promising performance and to overcome the intermittent of the adsorption refrigeration systems55 driven by parabolic trough collector developed by Fadar et al. in 2009. Under the climatic conditions of daily solar radiation being about 14 MJ per 0.8 m2 area of parabolic trough collector could achieve an SCP of the order of 104 W/kg, a refrigeration cycle COP of 0.43, and it could produce a daily useful cooling of 2515 kJ per 0.8 m2 of collector area, while its gross solar COP could reach 0.18. In the same way, the author tried to increase the efciency of the system as a result of parabolic trough collector55 coupled with heat pipe (Fadar et al. 2009). In the investigation, it was put in evidence that the system is optimum (COPs 0.18), when the adsorber external radius and aperture width of collector are of the order of 14.5 and 70 cm, respectively. So, the results show a promising performance in comparison with before published data, which were obtained with intermittent adsorption refrigerators. In addition, it does not need any moving parts or external pumping.
C. Evacuated tube collector
A different approach to increase the overall efciency of the adsorption icemaker was studied by various researchers for the past years. In this way, Niemann et al. (1997) designed and constructed an ETC collector coupled with an external parabolic circle concentrator (PCC) to operate a large size adsorption refrigeration system.72 The envisaged collector eld consists of evacuated tube collectors 1.6 m2 area and the concentration ratio of 5.0 was mounted in an east-west direction. The collector uid temperature varied from 0170 C. Finally, the author reported that the collector area was needed to produce 500 kg of ice per day amount to 140 m2 of PCC collectors, whereas for the ETC system, an area of 205 m2 was needed. Wang et al. (2000) presented a new hybrid of solar powered water heater and adsorption ice maker with an ETC solar collector area of 2 m2 which can produce the COP of about 0.150.23 and heating efciency of about 0.350.38.14 The specialty of the proposed system was adsorption bed separated and immersed into a water bath which was powered directly by vacuum tube solar collector. Hence, no thermal insulation or enhanced convection is needed for the adsorber and also which guarantees either good heating or cooling of the adsorber. In this arrangement, adsorption bed reaches the temperature of 80100 C. This hybrid system was provided 50 kg of water at 84100 C for domestic purpose. In order to reduce the heat loss in the adsorber73 and to improve the COP, ETC was used by Li et al. (2003). The performance of the cooling system was analyzed based on several design parameters like effect of the diameter of the evacuated tubes, the effect of distance between two adjacent tube centers, and effect of mass quantities of adsorbent. It is found out
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that the greater the diameter of ETC, the better performance but when the distance of is larger than the diameter, the cooling capacity decreased. In large level, air conditioning system was developed by Zhai and Wang (2010) to be powered by ETCs with heat source74 temperatures close to 100 C. The system had two adsorbers with 26 kg of carbon in each one and methanol used as refrigerant. The COP and the SCP of this system were signicantly inuenced by the area of ETC. The presented system with an ETC area of 80 m2 lead to a COP of 0.32 and a cooling power of 8.2 kW while operating with an ETC area of 240 m2 lead to a COP of 0.37 and cooling power of 16.4 kW. To improve the performance of the system, the authors used a tube and plate heat exchanger between the plates. With this new design, the improved COP obtained was 0.4 and the cooling power was 16.57 kW. The experimental conditions in this case were: a heat source temperature of 100 C, evaporation temperature of 10 C, and a condensing temperature of 24 C. Nkwetta and Smyth in 2011 suggested that concentrated augmented evacuated tube heats pipe array of solar cooling applications.75 Normally, non-concentrated evacuated tube heat pipe solar collector had been reported to show high uid temperature with improved thermal performance in the low to medium temperature range (<60 C) due to low heat losses but suffer higher heat losses in the medium to higher temperature range (>80 C) which reduces their efciency compared to concentrated evacuated tube heat pipe solar collectors. The proposed system was attaining temperatures in the range of 70120 C.
VI. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF SOLAR ADSORPTION REFRIGERATION SYSTEM
When assessing the performance of a refrigeration system or heat pump, its COP value is usually considered, this undoubtedly can account for the economic character well in the system powered by electricity or oil-boiling. But, if it is powered by solar energy, more attention will be paid to the ratio of the cooling capacity to the costs of materials and manufacture. Therefore, another assessing index is used here, and according to it, the optimum structure of the system is determined. The dened parameter is SPA,73 SPA Qf =C A; where Qf is the cooling capacity, C is the total cost per unit area, and A is the area of the adsorber. Obviously, a larger parameter SPA may have a better economic character and performance.
VII. PRESENT STATUS OF ADSORPTION SYSTEM AND FURTHER SCOPE OF RESEARCH
Recent advances in solar adsorption cooling technologies make it feasible to convert sunlight into cooling power, although net COP is currently in the range of 0.30.6. In this regard, a major leap has been realized in the net COP for solar cooling by introducing (Gordon and Kim Choon 2000) solar ber optic mini-dish concentrators that offer a signicant increase in collecting efciency while retaining the possibility of high temperature delivery.76 This new technology can be useful to overcome the inherent limitations for adsorption cooling applications. In addition, the bulky size is the major hurdle in the solar cooling system. So, compactness of the system is very important in the solar cooling system. In this view, no valve solar ice64 maker was built by Li et al. 2004. For this system, there are no any reservoirs, connecting valves, or throttling valve, and the structure of the system is very simple. Although solid adsorption refrigeration has received much attention from most of the refrigeration companies and laboratories around the world, some of the main challenges such as long adsorption/desorption time and small refrigeration capacity per unit mass of adsorbent have become obstacles for the real mass production of the system. Finally, present investigation suggested that these two obstacles rectied by using activated carbon ber. Since activated carbon ber would have the higher adsorption capacity due to its larger surface area, total pore volume, and average pore diameter properties. Saha et al. (2006) compared the adsorption77 capacity of activated carbon
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with activated carbon ber (ACF), the ACF adsorption capacity is very high 0.797 kg/kg compared with others. This ACF is recommended for short adsorptiondesorption cycle time.
VIII. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, an extensive review of the technologies related to the better utilization of solar energy for the production of cooling energy is presented. Among the various types of refrigeration systems, emphasis is made on the design concepts, the different adsorbent-adsorbat, and the different aspects of model concepts. The above described literature reveals that the performance of various adsorption systems varies over a wide range. Most of the works are experimental in nature under varying operating conditions. Some of them use sophisticated solar collectors with concentration,70,78,79 others used the adsorbent itself, contained in a transparent tube, as the solar energy absorbing material,78,80 but the most efcient conguration seems to consist of metallic at-plate solar collectors, single- or double-glazed, covered with a selective surface, lled with the adsorbent bed and evacuated tube solar collector.14,32,41,42,52,8183 In this connection, the type of solar collectors is an important factor for the adsorption refrigeration system. It depends on the level of temperature required by the process. An efcient water-ammonia adsorption solar refrigerator requires a temperature of collector around 150 C. This can be done generally by collectors which are either parabolic61 or with evacuated tubes. Nevertheless, most of the adsorptive units required a temperature of collector around 100 C. This can easily powered by at-plate collectors, which is an advantage. Another concern in the performance of the adsorption cooling system is mainly depends on the working pairs. A well designed system should have the characteristics of large adsorption capacity, large change of adsorption capacity with temperature variation, and more at desorption isotherm and refrigerant uid whose choice depends on the evaporator temperature. It must possess high latent heat of vaporization and small molecular dimensions to secure an easy adsorption. Since the refrigeration system will operate at a temperature largely below 0 C, thus methanol seems to be a good adsorbate because it can evaporate at a temperature largely below 0 C, its enthalpy of vaporization is high, its molecule is small enough to be easily adsorbed into micropores, its working pressure is always lower than the atmospheric one, which means a safety factor in case of leakage. As a result activatedcarbon methanol is the most widely used adsorbent reported in the literature due to its extremely high surface area and micro pore volume. The operating temperature is one of the limitations that constrain the operation of an activated carbonmethanol pair cooling system. At temperature more than 150 C, the methanol decomposes into dimethyl. Yuan84 got very low cooling performance, due to the decomposition products may be one of the main reasons for the diminishing of solar cooling performance. As a result, at plate collector is enough will achieve for nominal cooling. However, no need for expensive solar collector systems like concentrating and evacuated tube collector. Silicagelwater systems require the operation under vacuum condition which poses a hurdle. In addition, the practical difculties in water are precluding using it at an ice-making temperature. So, it is a more correct choice for air conditioning purposes only. Zeolitewater pair requires a regeneration temperature of above 200 C, activated carbonammonia pair also requires more than 150 C for its regeneration. These temperatures are not obtainable by simple at plate collectors or evacuated tube solar collector systems. So it is achieved only by solar concentrating collectors. It is suggested that this type of solar collectors increases the initial cost of the system. Although activated carbon methanol pair also works at a low regeneration temperature, but it is more suitable for ice production and freezing the application. Comparing with activated carbonammonia system, activated carbon methanol system is a vacuum system and that is safer than highpressure system though not so reliable if a leak exists. Activated carbonammonia adsorption system operates in the highpressure state, and ammonia is a corrosive and ammable refrigerant. A comprehensive theoretical analysis to assess the performance of adsorption system is important. It also ensures successful operation of such design concept and the important role of the adsorbentadsorbate materials. In addition, these systems also require good thermal
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insulation as well as provision to increase convection current during the adsorption period. These factors dominate in dictating the performance of the system. However, the point to be observed is that the heat transfer and mass transfer inside the bed were not effective due to the thickness of the bed being very deep. Finally concluded that activated carbon-methanol is an ideal working pair of solar energy because of its high COP and low generation temperature, low freezing point, and no corrosion of copper. In addition, maximum adsorption capacity of the activated carbon methanol pair is very good compared to the other adsorbent material.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by the MNRE, Government of India under PDRF-National Renewable Energy fellowship program at IIT Delhi.
Nomenclature
M Mass of dry adsorbent (kg) Cp Specic heat (kJ/kg) Qih Heat of isosteric heating process (kJ) Qide Heat of isobaric desorption (kJ) Qic Heat of isosteric cooling (kJ) Qiad Heat of isobaric adsorption process (kJ) Qrefri Refrigeration effect (kJ) Tg1 Temperature to start desorption ( C) Tg2 Desorption temperature ( C) Ta1 Temperature to start adsorption ( C) Ta2 Adsorption temperature ( C) Tevp Evaporation temperature ( C) DH Heat of adsorption (kJ) X Adsorption capacity (kg of refrigerant/kg of adsorbent) Xmax Adsorption capacity at adsorbed state (kg/kg) Xmin Adsorption capacity at desorbed state (kg/kg) ad bent Adsorbent ad bate Adsorbate ad mat Adsorbent bed
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Solar Cooling

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Solar adsorption cooling system: An overview

Additional information on J. Renewable Sustainable Energy

JOURNAL OF RENEWABLE AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY 4, 022701 (2012)

Solar adsorption cooling system: An overview

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

FIG. 1. Basic adsorption cycles.

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

FIG. 2. P-T-x diagrams for basic adsorption cycle.

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

(1) (2) (3) (4)

mCpad bent xCpad bate mad mat Cp ad mat dt:

mCpad bent xmin Cpad bate mad mat Cpad mat dt

mCpad bent xCpad bate mad mat Cp ad mat dt

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

FIG. 3. Schematic representation of the basic adsorption refrigeration system.

Qrefri : Qith Qide

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

FIG. 4. Radiation between two adjacent tubes.

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

Mass of adsorbent-adsorbate pair 50 kg/m

COP 0.15 0.10 0.21 0.25 0.26

Heat source temperature 93  C to 103  C 220  C250  C 150  C 325  C

Grenier et al.32 Lu et al.33 Ismail Solmus34 Dong Wu

15-22 kg/m2 140 kg/m2 1.87 kg/m2 45-10.5 kg/m2

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

A. Flat plate collector

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

COP 0.40 0.10 0.15 0.36 0.40 0.35 0.10.12

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

Solar adsorption cooling system

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

A. Mahesh and S. C. Kaushik

J. Renewable Sustainable Energy 4, 022701 (2012)

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Heat source temperature 93 C to 103 C 220 C250 C 150 C 325 C