Performance Evaluation and Feasibility of a New Pairs Adsorption Cycle Powered by Different Sources of Energy

Abstract

Adsorption cooling system (ACS) is one of the promising alternatives to the conventional vapor compression refrigeration system (VCRS) due to its advantage of driven by low grade thermal energy instead of electric power. However due to its lower efficiency, a significant research works is in progress worldwide. In view of this, the presented paper proposes a methodology to predict the required optimum heat source temperature of two different ACSs based on novel environment friendly pairs of activated carbon-methanol and silica gel-water for the ice-making and water chiller applications, respectively and their performance analysis. Performance parameters, cooling capacity, thermal efficiency, and coefficient of performance (COP) have been used to derive the limits of source temperature and applied to two different ACS. Further feasibility study has been carried out integrating economic and environmental perceptions for the El Oued city, Algeria. The performance analysis of CarboTech A35/1/CH₃OH showed the maximum ice production of 16.17 kg/day for the generator temperatures of 358–378 K with a COP of 0.65. The analysis of S40/H₂O application showed the maximum chilled water of 7.88 kg/day for the generator temperatures of 348–37 K having COP of 0.74. The economic analysis suggests that hot water generation with solar energy is a better option as compared to geothermal resource.