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Renewable Energy 23 (2001) 93101 www.elsevier.

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Solar/waste heat driven two-stage adsorption chiller: the prototype


B.B. Saha *, A. Akisawa, T. Kashiwagi
Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16 Naka-machi, Koganei-shi, Tokyo 184-8588, Japan Received 20 October 1999; accepted 2 May 2000

Abstract Nowadays, adsorption heat pumps receive considerable attention as they are energy savers and environmentally benign. In this study silica gelwater is taken as the adsorbent refrigerant pair. To exploit solar/waste heat of temperatures below 70C, staged regeneration is necessary. A new two-stage non-regenerative adsorption chiller design and experimental prototype is proposed. Experimental temperature proles of heat transfer uid inlets and outlets are presented. The two-stage cycle can be operated effectively with 55C solar/waste heat in combination with a 30C coolant temperature. In this paper the physical adsorption of silica gel, working principle and features of a two-stage chiller are described. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The severity of the ozone layer destruction problem, due partly to CFCs and HCFCs, has been calling for rapid developments in freon-free air conditioning technologies. With regard to energy use, global warming prevention requires a thorough revision of energy utilization practices towards greater efciency. From this perspective, interest in adsorption systems has been increased as they do not use ozone depleting substances as refrigerants nor do they need electricity or fossil fuels as driving sources. Several heat-pumping and refrigeration applications have been studied using various adsorbent and adsorbate pairs. Some representative examples are

* Corresponding author. Tel. and fax: +81-42-388-7076. E-mail address: bidyut@cc.tuat.ac.jp (B.B. Saha).
0960-1481/01/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 0 - 1 4 8 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 0 7 - 5

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given in Table 1. Most of the cycles mentioned in Table 1 require medium and/or high temperature heat sources to act as the driving sources. However, silica gel water and active carbonmethanol adsorption cycles have a distinct advantage over other systems in their ability to be driven by heat of relatively low, near-ambient temperatures, so that waste heat below 100C can be recovered, which is highly desirable. In this study, silica gelwater has been chosen as the adsorbentrefrigerant pair because the regeneration temperature of silica gel is lower than that of active carbon; and water has a large latent heat of vaporization. In order to utilize near environment temperature solar heat/waste heat sources between 50 and 70C with a cooling source of 30C, a new two-stage, four-bed, non-regenerative adsorption cycle is introduced and its features are described.

2. Physical adsorption of silica gel Silica gel is a partially dehydrated form of polymeric colloidal silicic acid [13]. The chemical composition may be expressed as SiO2nH2O. The adsorption desorption equation for silica gel can be expressed as
Table 1 Developments in adsorption heat pump systems (typical achievements) Adsorbent/refrigerant Activated carbon/ammonia Activated carbon/methanol Calcium chloride/methanol Complex compounds/salts Activated carbon/ammonia Monolithic carbon/ammonia Silica gel/water Silica gel/water Zeolite/ammonia Zeolite/water Zeolite composites/water System type Regenerative system Source Remarks 4 bed system Solar driven ice maker Chemical heat pump Promising uses: vehicles and residential air conditioning Thermal wave system; Tregeneration is very high Power density: 1 kW/kg of carbon Waste heat driven cycle; heat of ads, Qst=2800 kJ/kg Waste heat driven cycle; Tregeneration is very low Tregeneration is very high

Jones and Christophilos [1] Intermittent system Pons and Guilleminot [2] Intermittent adsorption Lai et al. [3] system Intermittent adsorption Beijer and Horsman system [4] Regenerative system Miles and Shelton [5] Intermittent adsorption system Intermittent adsorption system, single stage Intermittent adsorption system, three stage Intermittent system R.E. Critoph [6] Saha et al. [7] and Boelman et al. [8] Saha et al. [9]

Critoph and Turner [10] Cascaded adsorption Douss and Meunier Application: heating; Heat of system [11] adsorption Qst=3700 kJ/kg Intermittent adsorption Guilleminot et al. [12] Composites: (a) 65% system zeolite+35% metallic foam and (b) 70% zeolite+30% natural expanded graphite

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SiO2nH2O(s)SiO2(n1)H20(s)H2O(g)

(1)

where s and g denote respectively, solid phase and vapor phase. The adsorptive action of silica gel for vapors is a purely physical effect. When the particles become saturated, they do not suffer any change in size or shape, and even when completely saturated the particles seem to be perfectly dry. The adsorptive property of silica gel arises from its tremendous porosity; it has been estimated that 1 m3 gel contains pores having a surface of about 2.8107 m2. ). Silica gel adsorbs The dimensions of the pores are sub-microscopic (20200 A vapor from a gas mixture until the pores of the gel are lled. The amount of condensable vapor adsorbed in silica gel at any temperature increases as the partial pressure of the vapor in the surrounding gas approaches the partial pressure of vapor, which would exist if the gas were saturated at the gel temperature. Silica gel at 27C in contact with air saturated at this temperature can adsorb up to 0.4 kg of water per kg of gel [14]. When vapor is adsorbed in silica gel, the heat liberated is equivalent to the latent heat of evaporation of the adsorbed liquid plus the additional heat of wetting. The sum of the latent heat plus the heat of wetting is the heat of adsorption. During adsorption, the vapor latent heat is transformed into sensible heat, which is dissipated into the adsorbent, the metal of the adsorbent container and the surrounding atmosphere. Hence, there is a need for cooling the adsorbent if an excessive temperature rise of the gel is to be avoided. The amount of heat required to regenerate silica gel varies with the design of the equipment. In addition to supplying the heat necessary to release adsorbed refrigerant from the gel (heat of adsorption), heat must be added to raise the temperatures of the adsorbent bed and adsorber and also to overcome radiation losses. The action of silica gel is practically instantaneous under dynamic adsorption conditions, the length of the adsorption period may be arbitrarily established. If automatic operation is desired, the cycle time may be only a few minutes; as there is a trade off between time duration and cooling capacity. For example, during the rst 5 minutes gel particles are close to saturation point in a commercial adsorption chiller [15] resulting in optimal cooling capacity. Following this period cooling capacity drops.

3. Working principle of the advanced two-stage adsorption cycle The adsorption system can be compared to that of a conventional air conditioner or refrigerator, with the electric powered mechanical compressor replaced by a thermally driven adsorption compressor. The ability to be driven by heat, which is used for desorption, makes adsorption cycles attractive for electric energy savers. Also, since xed adsorbent beds are usually employed, these cycles can be operational without moving parts other than magnetic valves. This results in low vibration, mechanically simple, high reliability and very long life time. The aforementioned characteristics make them well suited for space applications. The uses of xed beds also results in intermittent cycle operation, with adsorbent beds changing between adsorption and desorption stages. Hence, if a constant ow of vapor from the evaporator

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is required, two or more adsorbent beds must be operated out of phase as described in the following paragraph. As can be seen from the conceptual Du hring diagram of Fig. 1, the conventional (single stage) silica gelwater cycle will not be operational with a 50C driving heat source if the cooling source is at 30C or higher, which would likely be the case of an air-cooled cooling tower in summer, in Tokyo. For practical utilization of these temperatures to adsorption chiller operation, an advanced (two-stage) cycle is designed. As can be seen from Fig. 1, these cycles allow to reduce Tregen of the adsorbent (TdesTcond) by dividing the evaporating temperature lift (TcondTeva) into two smaller lifts. Refrigerant (water vapor) pressure thus rises into two progressive steps from evaporation to condensation level. In order to attain this objective, the introduction of two additional sorption elements is necessary, as shown in Fig. 2. An advanced, two-stage cycle comprises of six heat exchangers, namely, a condenser, an evaporator and two pairs of sorption elements. In the cycle, valves 1, 3, 5 are open to allow refrigerant ow between heat exchangers. The sorption elements 1 and 4 (HX1 and HX4 in Fig. 2) are heated by hot water while the sorption elements 2 and 3 (HX2 and HX3 in Fig. 2) are cooled by cooling water. The silica gel in each sorption element is xed inside the container, i.e. packed around the nned heat transfer tubes which cannot be rotated or moved. Hence an uninterrupted supply of cooling energy requires operating as a pseudo-continuous cycle, where adsorption and desorption occur concomitantly and sorption elements repeatedly switch between adsorption and desorption modes. The thermophysical properties of silica gel used in this experimental chiller are shown in Table 2. Refrigerant (water), evaporates inside the evaporator, picking up evaporation heat from the chilled water, is adsorbed by adsorber 2 via valve 3. Sorption element 3

Fig. 1.

Conceptual Du hring diagram for both the conventional and two-stage cycles.

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Fig. 2.

Schematic of the two-stage adsorption chiller.

Table 2 Thermophysical properties of silica gel used in the two-stage chiller Type of gel (kg/m3) A Surface area (m2/g) 650 Porous volume (cm3/g) 0.36 Average diameter (mm) 0.7 Heat capacity (kJ/kgK) 0.92 Thermal Density conductivity (kg/m3) (W/mK) 0.175 2200 Volume fraction ( ) 0.341

also adsorbs refrigerant from the desorber 4 via valve 5. Desorber 1 is connected to the condenser via valve 1. The desorbed refrigerant vapor is condensed in the condenser at temperature Tcond; cooling water removes the condensation heat Qcond. This condensed refrigerant comes back to the evaporator via the tube connecting condenser and evaporator to complete the cycle. The tube is bent to achieve a pressure drop resulting in the refrigerant being in liquid phase in the evaporator. The use of parallel cooling water circuits for the condenser and adsorbers 2 and 3 results in similar temperature levels at the condenser (Tcond) and those adsorbers (Tads). When refrigerant concentrations in the adsorbers and desorbers are at or near their equilibrium level, the ows of hot and cooling water are redirected by switching the valves so that the desorbers switch into adsorption modes and the adsorbers change into desorption operations. During a short intermediate process (mode B or mode D) no adsorption/desorption occurs. This time is needed to preheat the adsorbers and precool the desorbers. The resulting low-pressure refrigerant is again adsorbed by

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the adsorbent to continue the process. The time chart of the chiller operation is shown in Table 3.

4. Two-stage chiller specication A prototype was built on the roof of our experimental building located at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology to test experimentally the performance of the advanced, two-stage adsorption chiller. A side-view of the two-stage chiller prototype is shown in Fig. 3. As can be observed all heat exchangers are totally covered with metallic enclosures and are thermally insulated to prevent heat loss to the external environment. Inside the metallic enclosure of each adsorber/desorber heat exchanger, and in the condenser, there is a small passage for hot water owing preventing capillary condensation on the surface of the wall. All four adsorber/desorber heat exchangers are removable to facilitate replacing any of the four heat exchangers by one of a higher performance eventually. The rated cooling capacity of the chiller is 1 RT (3.54 kW) and the COP is 0.34. External parameters regarding the chiller operation are listed in Table 4.

5. Temperature proles Fig. 4 shows experimental temperature proles of the heat transfer uid inlets and outlets obtained for the standard operating conditions listed in Table 4. After only 420 s, the hot water outlet temperature approaches the inlet temperature; from this point there is practically no more consumption of driving heat. This led us to select the standard adsorption/desorption cycle time as 420 s. But the cooling water outlet temperature from the adsorber after 420 s is still 2C higher than its respective inlet temperature. The reason for this is the increasing amount of refrigerant requiring cooling at the end of the adsorption cycle, in contrast to the desorption cycle where little refrigerant remains to be heated. Cooling water outlet temperature gradually returns to its inlet at 30C conrming that condensation takes place satisfactorily in
Table 3 Chiller operation time charta Cycle Adsorption/ desorption cycle mode A 420 Hw Cw Pre-heating/ pre-cooling cycle mode B 20 Cw Hw Adsorption/ desorption cycle mode C 420 Cw Hw Pre-heating/ pre-cooling cycle mode D 20 Hw Cw

Time (s) Valve HX

1,3,5 2,4,6 1,4 2,3

Vvalve; open; closed; Hwhot water; Cwcooling water; HXheat exchanger.

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Fig. 3.

Photograph of the experimental prototype.

Table 4 Standard operating conditions Hot water inlet Cooling water inlet Temperature Flow rate (kg/s) Temperature Flow rate (C) (C) (ads+cond) (kg/s) 55 1.2 30 Cycle time: 440 s Adsorption/desorption cycle 420 s 1.8 (1.2+0.6) Chilled water inlet Temperature Flow rate (kg/s) (C)

14

0.17

Pre-heating/precooling cycle 20 s

the condenser. The delivered chilled water temperature, however, continues below the inlet temperature in the whole cycle, showing that cooling energy production is steady which is highly desirable. For the standard operating condition, the experimental cooling capacity value is 3.2 kW and the coefcient of performance (COP) is 0.36.

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Fig. 4. Experimental heat transfer uid temperature proles.

6. Conclusions There is an increasing need for energy efciency and so thermally driven sorption systems in many world regions are essential. Regions with a warm climate and no steady electricity supply offer most potential. From this perspective, a new advanced two-stage adsorption chiller design and its features are presented in this paper. The prototype of the chiller is built to examine experimentally its performance. The main advantage of the two-stage adsorption chiller is its ability to utilize low temperature solar/waste heat (4075C) as the driving heat source in combination with a coolant at 30C. With a 55C driving source in combination with a heat sink at 30C, the COP of the two-stage chiller is 0.36. Flat plate solar collectors in any tropical climate can effectively produce the required driving source energy of the chiller making it superior to any other commercially existing cooling technology. From the above perspectives, the use of unexploited low-temperature solar/waste heat may offer an attractive possibility for improving energy conservation and efciency.

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[5] Miles DJ, Shelton SV. Design and testing of a solid-sorption heat-pump system. Appl Therm Engng 1996;16(5):38994. [6] Critoph RE. Rapid cycling solar/biomass powered adsorption refrigeration system. Renew Energy 1999;16:6738. [7] Saha BB, Boelman EC, Kashiwagi T. Computer simulation of a silica gelwater adsorption refrigeration cyclethe inuence of operating conditions on cooling output and COP. ASHRAE Trans 1995;101(1):34857. [8] Boelman EC, Saha BB, Kashiwagi T. Experimental Investigation of a silica gelwater adsorption refrigeration cyclethe inuence of operating conditions on cooling output and COP. ASHRAE Trans 1995;101(1):35866. [9] Saha BB, Kashiwagi T. Experimental investigation of an advanced adsorption refrigeration cycle. ASHRAE Trans 1997;103(2):508. [10] Critoph RE, Turner HL. Performance of ammonia-activated carbon and ammoniazeolite heat pump adsorption cycle. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Pompes a Chaleur Chimiques de Hautes Performances, Perpignan, France, 1988. pp. 20211. [11] Douss N, Meunier F. Experimental study of cascading adsorption cycles. Chem Engng Sci 1989;44(2):22535. [12] Guilleminot JJ, Chalfen JB, Choisier A. Heat and mass transfer characteristics of composites for adsorption heat pumps. In: Radermacher et al., editors. Proceedings of the International Absorption Heat Pump Conference, ASME-AES, New Orleans, USA, vol. 31, 1994. pp. 4016. [13] Ruthven DM. Principles of adsorption and adsorption processes. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1984. [14] Dehler FC. Silica and gel adsorption. Chem Metall Engng 1940;37:30710. [15] Chua HT, Ng KC, Malek A, Kashiwagi T, Akisawa A, Saha BB. Modeling the performance of twobed, silica gelwater adsorption chillers. Int J Refrig 1999;22:194204.

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