Novel adsorption system for cooling and power generation utilizing low grade heat sources

Adsorption cooling system is a promising technology that can be used to exploit the abundant amount of low grade heat sources such as solar energy, geothermal and waste heat from industrial processes. This technology can be more useful in the hot and developing countries where millions of people face annually the severe heat waves during summer and they still lack access to secure electricity grids, where adsorption system can be used to generate electricity as well as cooling in the same time. In this study, a novel four bed adsorption system is designed to generate cooling and electricity simultaneously. The system comprises mainly of two topping beds, two bottoming beds, two evaporators, condenser and expander (turbine). The topping beds are powered using the low grade heat source and utilizing AQSOA-Z02 (SAPO-34) zeolite (an advance adsorption material) and water, while the bottoming beds is powered by the heat recovered from the topping beds and utilizing Silica-gel and water. Results show that the overall system efficiency can be improved by 62%.