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Original Articles

A field investigation of a solar-powered adsorption cooling system under Guangzhou's climate with various numbers of heat exchangers in the adsorbers

, , , &
Pages 1282-1292 | Received 17 Aug 2016, Accepted 24 Jan 2017, Published online: 05 Apr 2017
 

Abstract

In the current study, a solar-powered double-bed adsorption cooling system has been built and tested in the Guangzhou climate. The effect of the pre-heating process on the cooling performance of the adsorption cooling system powered by solar energy has been experimentally investigated. A specific cooling power of 52.2 W/kg and a coefficient of performance of 0.20 were achieved under a 2-h pre-heating process with operating conditions of 26°C cooling water inlet temperature, 16°C chilled water inlet temperature, 8 L/min hot water and cooling water flow rate, 2 L/min chilled water flow rate and 600 s adsorption/desorption phase time. The average specific cooling power and coefficient of performance were improved by 26.1% and 33.3%, respectively, as compared to the case without conducting the pre-heating process. In addition, the influence of dead volume on the specific cooling power and coefficient of performance of the adsorption cooling system has also been investigated. Using various numbers of heat exchangers in the adsorber achieved different values of adsorber dead volume. The results show that a higher specific cooling power value is obtained with a smaller dead volume. Finally, the cooling performance of the adsorption cooling system was also studied under various operating conditions and a maximum specific cooling power and coefficient of performance are 180.4 W/kg and 0.29, respectively.

Nomenclature

Cp,water=

specific heat capacity of water, J/(kgK)

COP=

coefficient of performance

D=

dead volume, %

=

mass flow rate, kg/min

P=

pressure, Pa

Q=

power, W

SCP=

specific cooling power, W/kg

T=

temperature, °C

t=

time, s

V=

volume, m3

W=

mass, kg

Subscripts
ads=

adsorption

chill=

chilled water

cool=

cooling water

cycle=

cycle

des=

desorption

eva=

evaporation

he=

heater

hot=

hot water

hr=

heat recovery

in=

inlet

mr=

mass recovery

out=

outlet

so=

solar

Additional information

Funding

Funding sources for this research are provided by the International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China via Grant No. 2013J4500064, Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China via Grant No. 2013B050900020 and Grant No. 2014B090903007, and the Hong Kong Research Grant Council via General Research Fund account 16201114.

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