Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Wang
e-mail: rzwang@mail.sjtu.edu.cn
M. Li
Y. X. Xu
J. Y. Wu
H. B. Shou
Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University,
Shanghai 200030,
China
Introduction
The expanding population and the energy crisis have brought
serious problems to the world environment and sustainable development. The electric driven vapor compression refrigeration system has faced a challenge as CFCs and HCFCs are not suitable for
sustainable development. The common substitutes of refrigerant
R134a is also facing the problem of green house effect. Natural
refrigerants such as water, ammonia, methanol, etc. will be welcome for the future refrigeration and air conditioning industries.
However, good use of energy should be ensured.
The use of waste heat and solar energy for refrigeration and air
conditioning purposes has been accepted by people, and various
sorption systems have been developed and proven attractive Critoph 1, Meunier et al. 2, Wang et al. 3, Wang et al. 4, but
the real application is still limited. LiBr-water absorption systems
for air conditioning has had a big market in the last several years,
especially in Japan, China, and Korea. For energy saving heat,
gas, oil, electricity, absorption systems are now facing disadvantages as electric driven central air conditioning systems have
reached a COP over 4.5, while absorption systems are usually in
the range 1.11.25 if driven by heating.
The adsorption system is advantageous in small scale systems
if compared with absorption systems, especially for the handling
of the system and the cost. But its COP is usually smaller
than absorption systems. For solar energy utilization, a solid adsorption system is possibly the best system for refrigeration
purposes. The heating-desorption-condensation and coolingadsorption-evaporation processes are well suited for solar energy.
Solar water heaters are widely developed, and various types of
solar water heaters such as that plate type, evacuated tube type,
and heat pipes type solar collectors are used to absorb solar radiation. China has developed a good market for solar water heaters in
the last 5 years, and the total sales of solar water heaters have had
Contributed by the Solar Energy Division of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers for publication in the ASME JOURNAL OF SOLAR ENERGY ENGINEERING. Manuscript received by the ASME Solar Energy Division, Dec. 2000; final
revision, Jul. 2001. Associate Editor: U. Mei and J. Davidson.
Downloaded 13 Apr 2011 to 193.55.218.254. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm
Fig. 1 Schematics of a solar water heater and adsorption refrigerator. 1-Evacuated tube solar collector, 2 and 20-water
pipe, 3-water tank, 4-cover plate of the tank, 5-adsorber, 6, 9,
10, 11, 12, 15, 18-valves, 7-water filling control system,
8-condenser, 13-capillary tube, 14-receiver, 16-evaporator, 17ice box, 19-hot water reservoir.
Fig. 2 p-T-x diagram for an ideal combined heating and refrigeration system with heat recovery
Q u
T g2
M water C water dT
T a2
T g1
M a C pl dT
T a2
T g2
M m C pm M a C pa dT
T a2
T g2
h d M a dx
T g1
T g2
x T,p c M a C pl dT.
T g1
(1)
The first term represents the heat added to the water bath in the
tank, and the second term is the sensible heat of the metallic tank
and adsorbent mass. Item 3 is the sensible heat of refrigerant
liquid in the adsorbent before desorption, item 4 is the heat of
desorption, and item 5 is the sensible heat of refrigerant remained
in adsorbent bed. In Eq. 1, M water and C water are the mass and
specific heat of the water, respectively. M m and C pm are the mass
and specific heat of the adsorber, respectively. M a and C pa are the
mass and specific heat of the adsorbent respectively. C pl is the
specific heat of the refrigerant in the adsorbed state. Heat of desorption can be described by
H d
T g2
T g1
h d M a dx
T g2
hdM a
T g1
dx
dT.
dT
(2)
xx 0 exp k
T
1
Ts
(3)
T
Tc
(4)
Downloaded 13 Apr 2011 to 193.55.218.254. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm
T g2
M m C pm M a C pa dT
T a2
T a1
h a M a dx
T a2
T g2
x dil M a C pl dT
T a1
T a1
xM a C pl dT
Materials
Adsorbent carbon
M a 28
C pa 900
Adsorber stainless steel
M m 5
C pm 902
Water in the tank
M water 50
C pwater 4180
Methanol: C pl 750(J/kgK), x 0 0.284 kg/kg, k10.21, n1.39
T s 288.3 K, A4413, Le1102 kJ/kg.
(5)
T a2
where item 1 is the sensible heat of the adsorber mass and adsorbent, item 2 is the sensible heat of refrigerant in the adsorbent bed,
item 3 is the heat of adsorption, which can be calculated as
T a1
T a1
dx
H a
dT,
h a M a dx
haM a
dT
T a2
T a2
(6)
Qc
M water C pwater
(7)
(8)
xx conc x dil
(9)
(10)
T g2
M m C pm M a C pa dT
T a2
T g1
x conc M a C pl dT
T a2
T g2
h d M a dx
T g1
T g2
xM a C pl dT
T g1
(12)
Q g Q u Q water
Q re f Q cc
Qg
(11)
T
Q water T g2 M water C water dT
a2
Q re f Q cc
(13)
G t dt
and another is heating the water in the tank, with a solar efficiency
of
solar
Q water
(14)
G t dt
where G(t) is the solar flux density, G(t)dt is the total solar
energy during the day.
Performance Simulation
A hybrid system of a solar water heater and refrigerator has
been invented. The system parameters and the parameters for
simulation are listed in Table 1. In the concept design, a stainless
steel tube type adsorber filled with activated carbon with a diameter of 230 mm had been tried, and the mass of the adsorber and
the activated carbon were 5 kg and 28 kg, respectively Wang
et al. 11.
The solar heat flux density is taken from the solar source in
Shanghai, and the total radiant energy to the collector is assumed
to be G(t)dt20 MJ/m2 per day, with a solar collector effi-
Table 2 Simulated results of the hybrid system for the whole year.
Seasons
Jan.-March
April-June
July-Sept.
Oct.-Dec.
10
20
10
19.6
86.6
0.48
0.042
0.372
7.9
15
25
10
23.7
93.1
0.44
0.044
0.361
6.3
25
35
10
31
100
0.32
0.038
0.341
3.05
10
15
10
19.5
84.9
0.51
0.046
0.370
8.7
solar
Downloaded 13 Apr 2011 to 193.55.218.254. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm
Heating
energy
MJ
kg
kg
CO P 60
CO P cycle
CO P system
61
92
120
1.5
9.0
0.129
0.41
0.0591
0.575
44.5
81
120
1.2
6.0
0.113
0.386
0.0548
0.665
39.4
72
120
1.2
4.5
0.095
0.37
0.0475
0.635
April 10-11,
1999
April 1519, 1999
April 20-21,
1999
Hot water
Ice
Experimental Research
An electric heater is used to simulate solar heating. For a solar
collector, an average accepted radiation power of 500 W/m2 is
assumed, thus a 1500 W electric heater can simulate a 3 m2 evacuated solar collector. The performances of a hybrid system of an
electric water heater and an adsorption refrigerator are
Q re f Q cc
Qu
(15)
Q re f Q cc
Q h Q g
(16)
CO P system
CO P cycle
Q water
Qu
(17)
The experimental system was filled with 120 kg of water, however a market system will be good for 60 kg of hot water output
with a refrigeration capacity of about 5 kg of ice per day. Table 3
shows some experimental results, where CO P 60 represents the
system COP when the hot water output is 60 kg. CO P 60 is calculated based upon the experimental data and is defined as
CO P system
Q re f Q cc
Q u Q 60
(18)
Downloaded 13 Apr 2011 to 193.55.218.254. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm
Downloaded 13 Apr 2011 to 193.55.218.254. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm
solar collector for both water heating and adsorption refrigeration. One solar collector can be used for two purposes,
which is reasonable for family use as both heating and refrigeration output are available.
2. In construction: a solar water heater and adsorption refrigerator are connected only with one tube for refrigerant flow,
and the adsorber is immersed into the water tank. In this
case, high efficiency solar collectors such as evacuated tube
type and evacuated tube with heat pipe type can be used.
The hybrid concept has solved the problem for good heating
and good cooling to the adsorber.
3. In energy efficiency: the hybrid system has had good use of
solar energy, the sensible heat and adsorption heat of the
adsorption bed is obviously recovered, which is used again
to heat the water bath in the water tank, and thereby saved
solar energy.
4. Such a hybrid system with a combined cycle of heating and
refrigeration is very suitable for peak-shaving electric water
heating in connection with adsorption refrigeration.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Key Fundamental
Research Program under the contract No. G2000026309 and The
Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education
under the contract No. 2000024808. The support from the Teaching & Research Award Program for outstanding Young Teachers
in High Education Institutions of Ministry of Education, P. R.
China is also appreciated.
Nomenclature
C pwater
COP
CO P cycle
CO P solar
G(t)
ha
Ha
hd
Hd
k
Le
Ma
Mm
M water
n
Qc
A
C pa
C pl
C pm
Q cc
Q re f
Qu
T
Ta
T a1
T a2
Tc
Te
T g1
T g2
Ts
T0
x
x dil
x conc
Downloaded 13 Apr 2011 to 193.55.218.254. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm
References
1 Critoph, R. E., 1994, Forced Convection Enhancement of Adsorption
Cycles, Heat Recovery Syst. CHP, 14, pp. 343350.
2 Meunier, F., and Douss, N., 1990, Performance of Adsorption Heat Pumps:
Active Carbon-Methanol and Zeolite-Water Pairs, ASHRAE Trans., 267
274.
3 Wang, R. Z., Wu, J. Y., and Xu, Y. X., 1999, A Continuous Heat Regenerative
Adsorption Refrigeration Using Spiral Plate Heat Exchanger as Adsorbers:
Improvements, ASME J. Solar Energy Eng., 120 1, pp. 14 19.
4 Wang, R. Z., Wu, J. Y., Xu, Y. X., and Wang, W., 2001, Performance Researches and Improvements on Heat Regenerative Adsorption Refrigerator and
Downloaded 13 Apr 2011 to 193.55.218.254. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm