Renewable Energy 25 (2002) 417430 www.elsevier.

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Study of a solar powered solid adsorption desiccant cooling system used for grain storage
Y.J. Dai *, R.Z. Wang, Y.X. Xu
Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200030, Peoples Republic of China Received 14 August 2000; accepted 14 February 2001

Abstract A hybrid solar cooling system, which combines the technologies of rotary desiccant dehumidication and solid adsorption refrigeration, has been proposed for cooling grain. The key components of the system are a rotary desiccant wheel and a solar adsorption collector. The former is used for dehumidication and the later acts as both an adsorption unit and a solar collector. The heating load from sunshine can thus be reduced to a greater extent since the solar adsorption collector is placed on the roof of the grain depot. Compared with the solid adsorption refrigeration system alone, the new hybrid system performs better. Under typical conditions, the coefcient of performance of the system is 0.4 and the outlet temperature is 20C. It is believed that the system can be used widely in the regions with abundant solar resources due to such advantages as environmental protection, energy saving and low operation costs. Additionally, some parameters, for example, ambient conditions, the effectiveness of the heat exchanger and evaporative cooler, mass air-ow rate, etc., which affect system performance, are also analyzed. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Adsorption refrigeration; Rotary desiccant dehumidication; Grain storage; Coefcient of performance

1. Introduction The control of insect and mould population growth is an essential element in grain storage. The rate of population growth of both insects and moulds generally decreases with decreasing grain temperature and intergranular relative humidity (RH). The coo* Corresponding author. Tel.: 8621-62933250; fax: 8621-62933250. E-mail address: yjdai@sh163.net (Y.J. Dai).
0960-1481/02/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 0 - 1 4 8 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 7 6 - 3

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Nomenclature Ac Cp Cpr Cpm COP F H I k, n m ma mr mm Pe Pc qst Qc Qre Qdes RH S T Ta Ta1 Ta2 Tg1 Tg2 Ts ul x xmax Area of the solar collection surface (m2) Specic heat of adsorbent (kJ/kgK) Specic heat of refrigerant (kJ/kgK) Specic heat of metal structure (kJ/kgK) Coefcient of performance Factor of efciency Enthalpy of moist air (kJ/kg) Density of solar radiation (W/m2) Constants in the DA equation Mass of adsorbent (kg) Mmass air-ow rate (kg/s) Mass of refrigerant (kg) Mass of metal structure (kg) Pressure of the evaporator (Pa) Pressure of the condenser (Pa) Specic desorption heat (kJ/kg) Cooling capacity (kW) Regeneration heat of the rotary desiccant wheel (kW) Desorption heat (kW) Relative humidity Effective irradiation density (w/m2) Temperature (K) Ambient temperature (K) Temperature at start of adsorption (K) Temperature at end of adsorption (K) Temperature at start of desorption (K) Temperature at end of desorption (K) Saturation temperature of the methanol (K) Coefcient of heat loss (w/m2K) Adsorption rate (kg/kg) Maximum adsorption rate (kg/kg)

Greek symbols
ev h

Effectiveness of evaporative cooler Effectiveness of heat exchanger

Subscripts In Out Inlet conditions Outlet conditions

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ling of stored grains suppresses the growth of insect pest populations, inhibits spoilage by fungi and helps to preserve grain quality. Now, grain chillers are essential for use in Chinese grain depots. The most widely used method of cooling grain is to blow the cold dry air produced by the grain chillers into the grain packs when the temperature rises. This kind of device is characterized by a strong ability to cool, and the temperature rapidly decreases, but has the drawbacks of high initial costs and large electric power consumption, which leads to an increase in the cost of grain storage. To realize the economic operation of the grain depot, the primary problem is to reduce the cost of cooling grain. It is undoubtedly reasonable to cut the cost by using solar energy for cold grain storage, since solar energy is the most abundant and the most widely distributed energy resource in the world. Research on solar powered solid adsorption refrigeration has been carried out recently [15]. Critoph [6] evaluated some refrigerationadsorption pairs for refrigeration cycles. In view of practical applications, the solid refrigeration system using activated carbon and methanol as a working pair has the advantages of low desorption temperature, operation reliability, few moving parts, operating duration, less dependence on electric power, being environmental friendly, etc., and has the unique potential of utilizing low grade heat resources such as solar energy and waste heat. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) [5] set up a solar ice-maker using methanol and activated carbon based on a at plate adsorption bed, which can produce 57 kg of ice with 20 MJ heat input per day per square meter to receive solar irradiation, and has a coefcient of performance (COP) up to 0.14. Of the techniques of solid adsorption refrigeration, open cycle desiccant cooling is the maturest technique and has been put into commercial application for rather a long time [7]. Ismail et al. [8] introduced a solar desiccant bed grain cooling system in 1991. Li Chen and Thorpe [9] successfully applied the technique of desiccant cooling into grain storage and obtained a better result. In this paper, a hybrid solar adsorption cooling system, which combines desiccant cooling and closed cycle solid refrigeration, is presented for utilization in cold grain storage. Performance of the system and the effects of some parameters are also discussed. The development of adsorption refrigeration system suitable for depots is of importance in reducing the cost of grain storage. On the one hand, the arrangement of a solar collection adsorber is benecial for reducing the heating load of the depots because the solar collector is placed on the roof of the depot, on the other hand, utilization of desiccant dehumidication to remove moisture in the depots lowers the cooling load of grain chiller to a greater extent. Thus it is possible for this kind of system to substitute a conventional grain refrigerator partially or totally. The novel hybrid solar cooling system is expected to be applied in the regions with abundant solar resources and is of great signicance in decreasing the cost of grain storage using renewable energy for China. SJTU and the Nanjing Institute of Grain Science and Technology have carried out research on hybrid solar cooling systems. The objective of this paper is to introduce the hybrid solar cooling system developed in SJTU, and to analyze system performance using a mathematical model.

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2. System conguration and working principle The novel hybrid solar cooling system is congured primarily by three subsystems, namely: solid intermittent adsorption refrigeration; desiccant dehumidication; and cold storage, as shown in Fig. 1. Solid adsorption refrigeration includes a solar adsorption bed, condenser, receiver and evaporator, etc.. Desiccant dehumidication consists of a rotary desiccant wheel, a regenerative heater, and a thermal storage heat exchanger. In cold storage, the grain itself is used as the cold storage material a fan-coil unit is applied to supply cold air into the grain packs. Cooling water owing in the condenser comes from the water recycling in the evaporative cooler. Here, activated carbon and methanol is selected as a working pair. The desorption temperatures for both desiccant materials and activated carbon-methanol are all within the range of 80100C. The subsystem of solid adsorption, in which the adsorption bed is laid on the roof of the grain depot, works intermittently. During the day the adsorption bed receives solar irradiation and turns it into thermal energy, which leads to a rise in temperature. The desorption process of methanol begins when the pressure of the bed is higher than that of the condenser, which is determined by the temperature of cooling water. The desorbed methanol turns into liquid state from vapor, and is collected in the receiver. At night, natural convection and irradiation cool the adsorption bed and causes the pressure to drop in the bed. The adsorbent begins to adsorb methanol

Fig. 1.

Schematic of the hybrid solar cooling system.

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again when the bed pressure is lower than that of the evaporator. A cooling effect is thus produced when the refrigerant is evaporated within the evaporator. Particularly, the grain itself is the cold storage material, which stores the cold in the night and becomes somewhat hot due to heat transfer from its surroundings in the day, this heat gained in the day is removed again at night by means of solid adsorption refrigeration. Moisture produced by the grain is removed by desiccant dehumidication, in which silica gel or a molecular sieve is often used as desiccant materials. The regeneration process, which ensures that the subsystem works continually, is driven by hot air heated by a solar heater or burning gas/coal. The air comes mainly from the recycled air from the depot and its surroundings. The air is cooled in the heat exchanger by other air, which is preliminarily cooled by an evaporative cooler. There are two parts to the process: at night the air is induced into the evaporator where the air takes the cold production away; during the day the air is sent to the grain depot directly or passes through the evaporative cooler depending on the humidity of air coming out of the desiccant wheel. The temperature of the regeneration air coming out of the rotary desiccant wheel is still somewhat high, and so can assist in heating the adsorption bed with the help of auxiliary heat resources, such as burning coal or oil. The rotary desiccant wheel, together with the evaporative cooling, helps maintain the humidity of the grain depot at a constant level that is suitable for grain storage. Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagrams of a rotary desiccant wheel. The unique features of the system are as follows: Ability to deal with the problems of humidity in the grain depot due to the use of desiccant dehumidication and evaporative cooling. Realization of low operation cost Overcoming the difculties that solid adsorption refrigeration is inefcient for

Fig. 2.

Schematic diagram of the rotary desiccant wheel.

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removing moisture from air and desiccant cooling cannot reduce the temperature of air enough without changing the humidity.

3. Mathematical model In order to predict the system performance, we established a mathematical model describing this novel system based on earlier works. Here, a well-developed mathematical model reported in Refs. [10,11] was adopted to calculate the process of rotary dehumidication. The concepts of evaporative cooler effectiveness and heat exchanger effectiveness were used to describe the evaporative cooler and the heat exchanger respectively, just as the method reported by Charoensupaya and Worek [12]. The authors would put emphasis on developing an appropriate model suitable for the rapid evaluation of the solar adsorption collector. Particularly, the fundamentals of solid adsorption refrigeration are illustrated in detail in Refs. [13,14]. Fig. 3 shows a basic cycle of adsorption refrigeration, which is classied into four sections, namely: isosteric heating (ab); isobar heating (desorption, bc); isosteric cooling (cd); and adsorption (da). A one-dimensional model with respect to time is thus established to predict the temperature variation of the solar adsorption collector. It is assumed that the adsorption equilibrium exists at any time since the cycling time period for solar adsorption refrigeration is so long. Hence it is reasonable that the DA equation is used to describe the adsorption process. It is known from the fundamentals of solid adsorption refrigeration that the heating process of the refrigeration cycle can be divided into isosteric heating and isobar heating. The energy balance for the isosteric process is:

Fig. 3.

Schematic of a basic cycle of adsorption refrigeration.

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AcF [S ul(T Ta)] (mCp)e

T t

(1)

Here F is efciency factor of the solar adsorption bed, S is the effective solar irradiation, equal to incident radiationoptical efciency. ul denotes the coefcient of the heat loss. The energy balance for the isobaric process is: AcF [S ul(T Ta)] x T (mCp)e mqst t t (2)

Here the rst item on the right-hand side is adsorption heat, the second item is sensible heat produced by temperature rising, x is the adsorption rate and is given by the DA equation: x xmaxexp k T 1 Ts
n

(3)

where k and n are constants. For the desorption process, Ts=Tc. Rearranging Eq. (2) gives: AcF (S ulTa) AcF ulT (mCp)e here (mCp)e mCp xmCpr mmCpm The method for obtaining the coefcient of heat loss is similar to that of the at plate solar collector [15]. The thickness of the solar adsorption collector is 4.5 cm. In order to enhance the process of heat transfer a n type structure is employed with a n efciency is 0.9. Under these conditions, using the method mentioned above, one could obtain the temperature variations of the solar adsorption collector within the daytime as shown in Fig. 4. The maximum temperature of the adsorption bed is about 100C. There is a turnover point corresponding to Tg1, prior to this point and an isosteric heating process exists, followed by an isobar heating process. We do not want to consider the cooling process of the adsorption bed. For the adsorption process, we use the concept of mean adsorption temperature, as used by Teng et al. [14]. T t mqst kn T xmax 1 Tc Tc
n1

exp

T 1 Tc

(4)

4. Performance analysis The performance of the system was estimated using the above model. The conditions are as follows: area of solar collection=20 m2; length of the rotary desiccant

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Fig. 4.

Variation in the adsorption bed temperature over 1 day.

wheel=20 cm; outer diameter=50 cm; and inner diameter=10 cm; ratio of the area of air owing to cross section area=0.85; and rotation speed of the wheel=5 rph. Regular density silica gel was selected as the desiccant material and the heat exchanger effectiveness and evaporative cooler effectiveness were set at 0.85 and 0.7, respectively. The cooling production is: Qc ma(H1 H2) (5)

where H1 stands for the enthalpy of the inlet air and H2 stands for the enthalpy of outlet air. The COP is: COP Qc Qre+Qdes (6)

where Qc is the cooling production of the hybrid system, Qre is the regeneration heat of the rotary desiccant wheel, and Qdes is the desorption heat for solid adsorption refrigeration. The temperature of recycled air is 5C lower than that of the inlet state, the condensation temperature is taken as the ambient temperature, the evaporation temperature is 8C and the mean adsorption temperature is 40C. Table 1 gives two sets of results for typical cases. It is clear that the system can process air at the temperature and humidity needed
Table 1 Performance of the system under two typical cases Tin (C) 35 25 RHin (%) 40 70 ma (kg/h) 650 650 Tout (C) 16.0 13.0 RHout (%) 60 61 Qc (kW) 6.58 5.99 COP 0.42 0.34

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for grain storage according to the criterion introduced in Ref. [8]. The COP of the system reaches 0.42 and 0.34, respectively, for the two cases, which are both higher than that of the solid adsorption refrigeration system alone.

5. Discussions on the effects of some parameters It should be noted that the calculation conditions below are taken to be the same as those mentioned earlier unless specically stated. 5.1. Effect of ambient temperature and humidity Fig. 5 shows the effects of the ambient temperature and humidity on the COP. System in the gure represents the analysis results of system as a whole, and adsorption means the results of adsorption refrigeration subsystem. Under the given conditions, the COP of the solid adsorption refrigeration subsystem is weakly dependent on the RH but increases with the ambient temperature. The ambient temperature and humidity affect the system COP greatly the higher the temperature and humidity are the higher the system COP will be. The reason for this lies in the fact that the performance of the rotary desiccant wheel is intimately related to with Tin and RHin. The outlet temperature of the air varies signicantly with changes in ambient temperature. Fig. 6 shows that Tout increases with the ambient temperature, but increases only a little as RH increases for a xed Tin. Under the given conditions, the peak value of the system COP is about 0.34; about twice the minimum value, 0.155. This means that the system can perform better at higher temperatures. Moreover, it is found that the outlet temperature increases by no more than 2C for four cases in Fig. 4 when the RH changes from 20 to 80%. The outlet temperature is in the range of 1618C, and 1113C for Tin=25C and 30C, respectively.

Fig. 5.

Impact of ambient temperature and humidity on COP.

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Fig. 6.

Impact of ambient temperature and humidity on Tout.

5.2. Effectiveness of evaporative cooling

ev

and effectiveness of heat exchanger

Here the inlet RH is set to 40%. The evaporative cooler acts as a cooler on the one hand to remove heat from the cooling water by evaporative cooling, whereas on the other hand it is used to cool the air preliminarily with the assistance of a heat exchanger. Fig. 7 shows that the higher the effectiveness of the evaporative cooler, the higher the system COP and the lower the outlet temperature will be. There exists a linear relationship between ev and COP. The heat exchanger is a key component

Fig. 7.

Impact of

ev

on COP.

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Fig. 8.

Impact of

in

on COP.

for decreasing the enthalpy of the air. Fig. 8 indicates that greater effectiveness of the heat exchanger will improve the COP and cooling capacity. Variations in h changes COP signicantly. When h is 0.2, COP is about 0 and no cooling effect is produced. The inuence of the inlet temperature on the system performance is small corresponding to a small h, but becomes strong with the increase of h. 5.3. Evaporation temperature Fig. 9 shows the impact of the evaporation temperature (Te) on the COP; the COP increases linearly with Te. When Te varies from 0 to 10C, the COP increases by

Fig. 9.

Impact of the evaporation temperature on COP.

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Fig. 10.

Impact of ma on COP.

0.05. Other research has also found that the higher the Te is, the better the system performance will be [14]. In this system, variation in temperature changes the heat rejected by condenser, the temperature of cooling water, and causes a change in evaporative cooling, so it is thought that Te is still somewhat inuential on desiccant dehumidication. 5.4. Mass air-ow rate Figs. 10 and 11 shows the effect of the mass air-ow rate on system performance. The inlet RH for every considered case is always 70%. It is found that the greater the mass air-ow rate is, the higher the system COP and the higher the outlet tem-

Fig. 11. Impact of ma on Tout.

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perature of the air will be. In the case of ma=1500 kg/h, the COP is about 0.53 and the outlet temperature is 26.0C for Tin=35C. The COP is 0.48 and Tout=21C for Tin=30C. COP increases with an increase in air inlet temperature, but behaves weakly under a small mass ow rate. A similar phenomenon could not be found with regard to the outlet temperature, which increases linearly as the mass air-ow rate increases.

6. Conclusions In this paper a hybrid solar powered solid adsorptiondesiccant cooling system with a 20 m2 solar collection area was investigated using numerical analysis. It was indicated that this kind of hybrid solar cooling system using for grain storage is acceptable from both technology and economic operation viewpoints. Numerical simulation was conducted based on a mathematical model of solar adsorption refrigeration, together with other well-developed models concerning the rotary desiccant wheel, etc. The peak temperature value of the adsorption bed was about 100C. The system removes the sensible heat and latent heat by means of solid adsorption refrigeration and dessicant dehumidication, respectively. Under given conditions, the COP of the system reaches 0.4, while the outlet temperature is 20C. Hence any drawbacks of the poor efciency of solar adsorption refrigeration and higher outlet temperature for desiccant dehumidication will be overcome. It was also found that the COP of the system increases with an increase in ambient temperature and humidity, has a linear relationship with the effectiveness of evaporative cooling, that is, the greater the effectiveness of the evaporative cooling, the better the system performance will be. There also exists a parabolic relationship between the COP and the effectiveness of heat exchanger; the COP increases with the effectiveness of heat exchanger. Moreover, a higher mass air-ow rate is benecial for improving the COP, but is not helpful in decreasing the outlet temperature of the air. The mass air-ow rate should be balanced between achieving a better COP and in lowering the temperature of the cooling system.

Acknowledgements This research is supported by the fund of the state Post Doctor Science and the state Key Fundamental Research program under the contract No. G2000026309. The authors gratefully acknowledge the staff and students of SJTU who contributed to this work.

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