Energy Conversion and Management 49 (2008) 33433348

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Energy Conversion and Management

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Second law analysis of double effect vapour absorption cooler system

Rabah Gomri *, Riad Hakimi
Engineering Faculty, Department of Gnie Climatique, Constantine University, 25000 Constantine, Algeria

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, exergy analysis of double effect lithium bromide/water absorption refrigeration system is
Available online 20 June 2008 presented. The system consists of a second effect generator between the generator and condenser of the
single effect absorption refrigeration system, including two solution heat exchangers between the absor-
Keywords: ber and the two generators.
Absorption cooler In order to simulate the refrigeration system by using a computer, a new set of computationally ef-
H2OLiBr cient formulations of thermodynamic properties of lithium bromide/water solution developed is used.
Double effect
The exergy analysis is carried out for each component of the system. All exergy losses that exist in double
Energy
Exergy
effect lithium bromide/water absorption system are calculated. In addition to the coefcient of perfor-
Modelling mance and the exergetic efciency of the system, the number of exergy of each component of the system
is also estimated.
This study suggests the component of the absorption refrigeration system that should be developed.
The results show that the performance of the system increases with increasing low pressure generator
(LPG) temperature, but decreases with increasing high pressure generator (HPG) temperature. The high-
est exergy loss occurs in the absorber and in the HPG, which therefore makes the absorber and HPG the
most important components of the double effect refrigeration system.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction tem, the number of exergy of each component of the system is also
estimated.
Absorption cooling systems have become increasingly popular
in recent years from the viewpoints of energy and environment.
2. Description of absorption system
Despite a lower coefcient of performance (COP) as compared to
the vapour compression cycle, absorption refrigeration systems
The double effect absorption refrigeration system as shown in
are attractive for using inexpensive waste heat, solar, geothermal
Fig. 1 consists of two generators, condenser, evaporator, absorber,
or biomass energy sources for which the cost of supply is negligible
pump, two solution heat exchangers, two solution reducing valves
in many cases. In addition absorption refrigeration use natural sub-
and two refrigerant expansion valves. As shown in Figs. 1 and 2,
stances, which do not cause ozone depletion and global warming
the system is a ve temperature (temperature in LPG, temperature
as working uids [14].
in HPG, evaporator temperature, condenser temperature, and ab-
A number of researchers have used exergy analysis of absorp-
sorber temperature) and three pressure level (low pressure in the
tion refrigeration system. A particular attention was given to sim-
evaporator and absorber, medium pressure in the condenser and
ple effect absorption refrigeration system [57]. However, the few
the low pressure generator, the high pressure in the high pressure
relatively works available on analysis of double effect refrigeration
generator). In the system operation, the strong solution is pumped
system consider only the analysis by the rst law of thermody-
from the absorber to the HPG where it is heated at relatively high
namic [812].
temperature to boil out the refrigerant vapour from the solution.
In this paper, exergy analysis of double effect lithium bromide/
The primary vapour, from the HPG comes into the LPG heating
water absorption system is presented.
the medium concentration solution from the HPG and then being
The exergy analysis is carried out for each component of the
condensed. At the outlet of LPG secondary vapour is produced,
system. All exergy losses that exist in double effect lithium bro-
which together with the condensed water of primary vapour ows
mide/water absorption system are calculated. In addition to the
into the condenser in which the heat rejection takes place. The heat
coefcient of performance and the exergetic efciency of the sys-
of condensation of the primary vapour from the HPG is used in the
LPG to get the secondary vapour. Thus, the total amount of liquid
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +21364317045. refrigerant leaving condenser is the sum of refrigerant originating
E-mail address: rabahgomri@yahoo.fr (R. Gomri). from HPG and LPG. The refrigerant liquid from the condenser, on

0196-8904/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enconman.2007.09.033
3344 R. Gomri, R. Hakimi / Energy Conversion and Management 49 (2008) 33433348

Nomenclature

e specic total exergy (kJ/kg) g efciency

Ex exergy (kW) hCarnot Carnot factor (Carnot efciency)
Exd exergy destruction (kW) q mass density (kg/m3)
HEX heat exchanger
HPG high pressure generator Subscripts
LPG low pressure generator 0 reference value
m mass ow rate (kg/s) ab absorber
Nexergy number of exergy cd condenser
P pressure, Pa ev evaporator
Q heat transfer rate (kW) gh high pressure generator
T temperature (C) gl low pressure generator
W mechanical power (kW) i the ith chemical species
x mass fraction of lithium bromide (%) j heat source number
m medium
Greek symbols p pump
e effectiveness

11 18
HPG
19

8 7

14 Heat
Exchanger
21 II
LPG
Condenser 9
13 12 10
20 6

1 15
Heat
Exchanger
I

2 16

5
3
17
23
Pump
Evaporator Absorber

22 4
25 24

Fig. 1. The schematic illustration of double effect absorption refrigeration system.

expansion, continues to the evaporator where it is evaporated at
low pressure, extracting the heat of vaporization from the medium
to be cooled. This cold vapour is then dissolved in weak solution
coming from the LPG through the solution heat exchanger (HEX-
I), thereby rejecting its heat of absorption in the absorber. The
resulting strong solution is then pumped to HPG through HEX-I
and HEX-II, respectively.
3. Procedure for modelling a double effect refrigeration system
 The operating parameters are: evaporator temperature Tev,
condenser temperature Tcd, absorber temperature Tab, HPG tem-
perature Thg, effectiveness of heat exchangers (eI, eII), efciency
of the solution pump gp and refrigeration load Qev.
 Strong solution concentration, pressure condenser Pcd, evapora-
tor pressure Pev, absorber pressure Pab (Pab = Pev) and LPG pres-
sure Pgl (Pgl = Pcd) are calculated.
 Assuming the temperature in the LPG, the concentration of the
weak solution leaving LPG is calculated.
 Assume initial value of medium solution concentration (Xm) and
nd the pressure in HPG: Pgh = f(Xm, Tgh).
 Find enthalpy and mass ow rate of all points in the system.
 Verify the energy balance for LPG (energy balance in the LPG
less or equal to 104 kW). If energy balance is not occurred to
the desired accuracy, increase Xm and repeat calculation with
the new value of Xm, till energy balance occurs across the LPG.
 If energy balance is occurred, to the desired accuracy, calculate
energy ow at the various components of the system,
 R. Gomri, R. Hakimi / Energy Conversion and Management 49 (2008) 33433348 3345

Temperature
T

xhg xab xhg

xgl xab xgl

Tgh 8 8a HPG 11

7
12
12a

Tgl 15 LPG 14
15a
9
6
16 Condenser
Tcd 1 13a
13

4b Absorber 4a
Tab
4

Evaporator
Tev
2 3

Saturated
Saturated vapour
liquid

Entropy s
Fig. 2. LiBr/water double effect absorption refrigeration cycle on Ts diagram.

all input exergy and all output exergy in the system, ally efcient formulations of thermodynamic properties of lithium
all exergy losses that exit in the system, bromide/water solution and liquid water developed by Patek and
coefcient of performance (COP), Klomfar [13] are used in this work.
exergy efciency of the system. The equations for the thermal properties of steam are obtained
from correlation provided by Irvine and Liley [14].
The energy balance of LPG is
Q gl m11  h11 m10  h10  m14  m14  m12  h12  m15  h15 0 4. Assumptions

1 In order to simulate the double effect absorption refrigeration

Pump work of the solution pump is obtained by system, several assumptions are made, including the following:
P5  P4
W m4  2
gp  q4  The analysis is made under steady conditions.
 The refrigerant (water) at the outlet of the condenser is satu-
Effectiveness of heat exchanger is dened as the ratio of actual heat rated liquid.
transfer to the maximum possible heat transfer. Accordingly, the  The refrigerant (water) at the outlet of the evaporator is satu-
effectiveness of heat exchangers I and II are, respectively, given as rated vapour.
below [4]:  The lithium bromide solution at the absorber outlet is a strong
h15  h16 solution and it is at the absorber temperature.
gI 3  The outlet temperatures from the absorber and from generators
h15  h16
correspond to equilibrium conditions of the mixing and separa-
h  h9
gII 8 4 tion, respectively.
h8  h9
 Pressure losses in the pipelines and all heat exchangers are
where h9 and h16 represent the enthalpy of minimum heat capac- negligible.
ity streams (here, it is hot stream, i.e., strong solution) at the exit of  Heat exchange between the system and surroundings, other
the respective heat exchangers when they are cooled to the temper- than in that prescribed by heat transfer at the HPG, evaporator,
ature of respective entry cold streams (weak solution). condenser and absorber, does not occur.
In order to simulate double effect refrigeration system by using  The reference environmental state for the system is water at an
a computer, the thermalphysical properties of the working uids environment temperature T0 of 25 C and 1 atmospheric pres-
have to be known as analytic functions. A new set of computation- sure (P0).
3346 R. Gomri, R. Hakimi / Energy Conversion and Management 49 (2008) 33433348

Table 1 double effect refrigeration system. To solve the large set of equa-
Fixed data used in the simulation tions simultaneously a computer program, which is written in
Refrigeration capacity Qev 300 kW FORTRAN was developed. Computer simulation was carried out
Condenser Condensation temperature Tcd 35 C in order to determine the various stream properties and the
Inlet temperature of cooling water Ticw 27 C amount of heat and work exchanged by all equipments of the chil-
Outlet temperature of cooling water Tocw 32 C ler. The results of the energetic and exergetic analysis of the pro-
Absorber Absorber temperature Tab 35 C cess are given in Tables 24.
Inlet temperature of cooling water Ticw 27 C Table 4 shows the simulation results of the second law analysis
Outlet temperature of cooling water Tocw 32 C of the double effect refrigeration system. The absorber has the
Evaporator Evaporation temperature Tev 4 C highest exergy loss rate, and the next largest exergy loss rate
Inlet temperature of chilled water Tichw 12 C
Outlet temperature of chilled water Tochw 7 C
HPG HPG Tgh 130 C Table 2
Outlet temperature of hot Water Tohw Tgh + 8 C Energy ows at the various components of the system and coefcient of performance
Inlet temperature of hot Water Tihw Tohw + 10 C Component Symbol Energy ow (kW)
LPG LPG Tgl 80 C
HEX-I Heat exchanger effectiveness eI 70 % HP generator Qg 252.407
HEX-II Heat exchanger effectiveness eII 70 % Condenser Qcd 167.205
Pump Pump efciency gP 95 % Evaporator Qev 300.000
Absorber Qab 385.236
Pump W 0.000
 The system produce chilled water, and HPG is driven by pressur- COP 1.189
ized hot water.
 The system rejects heat to cooling water at the condenser and
absorber.
Table 3
 Fixed data used in the simulation are summarized in Table 1. Double effect absorption data obtained from thermodynamic analysis

Point T (C) m (kg/s) X (% LiBr) Ex (kW)

5. Thermodynamic analysis 1 35.00 0.12702 00.000 0.097
2 4.00 0.12702 00.000 0.843
Energy and exergy analyses are used here to perform thermody- 3 4.00 0.12702 00.000 23.533
namic performance comparisons. Many researchers propose that 4 35.00 1.73674 55.869 52.417
5 35.00 1.73674 55.869 52.417
the thermodynamic performance of a process is best evaluated
6 62.49 1.73674 55.869 59.466
using exergy analysis [1517]. Exergy is the maximum amount of 7 106.81 1.73674 55.869 86.607
work, which can be produced by a stream or system as it is brought 8 130.00 1.67132 58.056 122.898
into equilibrium with a reference environment and can be thought 9 76.09 1.67132 58.056 88.190
of as a measure of the usefulness or quality of energy. Exergy is 10 76.09 1.67132 58.056 88.190
11 130.00 0.06542 00.000 26.989
consumed during real processes and conserved during ideal pro- 12 82.46 0.06542 00.000 1.367
cesses. In general, energy and exergy efciencies are determined 13 35.00 0.06542 00.000 0.472
as the ratio of the energy (or exergy) of the product(s) to the energy 14 80.00 0.06160 00.000 5.400
(or exergy) of the input(s). 15 80.00 1.60972 60.278 106.434
16 48.67 1.60972 60.278 95.268
In steady state and neglecting the kinetic energy and the poten-
17 48.67 1.60972 60.278 95.269
tial energy the exergy balance of an open system can be written 18 148.00 7.34038 623.157
! !
X T0
 X X 19 140.00 7.34038 551.159
20 27.00 7.99001 0.341
Exd 1  Qj mi  exi  mi  exi W
j
Tj i i
21 32.00 7.99001 3.136
in out
22 12.00 14.28546 16.522
5 23 7.00 14.28546 32.896
24 27.00 18.40876 0.785
25 32.00 18.40876 7.226
6. Energy and exergy efciencies

The overall energetic performance of the plant is determined by

Table 4
evaluating its coefcient of performance (COP): Exergy destructed at the various components of the system and exergy efciency
Q ev Component Symbol Exergy
COP 6 destructed (kW)
Q gh W
HP generator Exd-HPG 8.718
The exergetic analysis reveals important information about the LP generator Exd-LPG 1.979
plant total irreversibility distribution among the components; Condenser Exd-Cd 2.980
determine which component weights on the overall plant inef- Evaporator Exd-Ev 6.316
Absorber Exd-Ab 12.879
ciency. The exergy efciency is evaluated by
Heat exchanger II Exd-HEXII 7.567
 
Exd Heat exchanger I Exd-HEXI 4.116
gexergy 1  1  N exergy 7 Pump Exd-Pump 0.000
Q gh  hCarnot W Valve between evaporator Exd-Val-(Ev-Cd) 0.941
and condenser
Valve between HPG and LPG Exd-Val-(HPG-LPG) 0.000
7. Results and discussion Valve between LPG and condenser Exd-Val-(LPG-Cd) 0.895
Valve between heat exchanger Exs-Val-(HEXI-Ab) 0.000
Mass, energy and exergy balance equations and the various and absorber
gexergy 35.57%
complementary relations constitute the simulation model of the
 R. Gomri, R. Hakimi / Energy Conversion and Management 49 (2008) 33433348 3347

occurred in the HPG and heat exchanger II. Since exergy loss rates slop curves of the COP and gexergy become almost at. In other
in the pump and solution valves are very small, their effects on the words, increasing the LPG temperature higher than a certain value
total exergy loss rate are inconsiderable. does not provide much improvement for the COP and gexergy.
Fig. 3 presents the variation of the number of exergy of every It is clear that much lower is Tgh, much higher are the COP and
component in the system and the overall number of exergy of gexergy. Moreover, much higher is Tgh, much higher must be Tgl to
the system (chiller). This gure allowed us to know immediately maximize the COP and gexergy.
the exergy efciency of every component and the exergy efciency In this study, and for commonly used condenser and absorber
of the system. The absorber has the highest number of exergy, and cooling water temperature (27 C/32 C) and chilled water temper-
the next largest number of exergy occurred in the HPG and heat ex- ature (12 C/7 C) the best COP and gexergy were obtained for LPG
changer II. The number of exergy in the pump and solution valves temperature varying between 78 C and 81 C and HPG tempera-
are very small, their effects on the exergy efciency of the system ture varying between 125 C and 135 C.
are negligible and are not represented in Fig. 3.
Figs. 4 and 5 present the variation of the coefcient of perfor- 8. Conclusion
mance (COP) and exergy efciency (gexergy), at different HPG tem-
perature, versus LPG temperatures. Double effect absorption refrigeration system is analyzed by
As it can be seen from these gures, the COP and gexergy initially using a computer. A new set of computationally efcient formula-
increase sharply when the LPG temperature increase and then the tions of thermodynamic properties of lithium bromide/water

100

90

80 exergy
70
Number of exergy [%]

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
HPGenrator LPGenerator A bsorber Condenser Evaporator Heat Exchanger Heat Exchanger Valve between Valve between Chiller
I II Evaporator and LPG and
condenser condenser
Components

Fig. 3. Number of exergy at the various components of the system.

1.3

1.2

1.1
Coefficient of Performance (COP)

0.9

0.8

Tgh=120C Tgh=125C Tgh=130C Tgh=135C Tgh=140C Tgh=145C

0.7

0.6

0.5
72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91
LPG Temperature [C]

Fig. 4. Coefcient of performance (COP) of double effect absorption refrigeration system versus HPG and LPG temperatures.
3348 R. Gomri, R. Hakimi / Energy Conversion and Management 49 (2008) 33433348

37

33
Exergy efficiency [%]

29

25

21 Tgh=120C Tgh=125C Tgh=130C Tgh=135C Tgh=140C Tgh=145C

17
72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91
LPG Temperature [C]

Fig. 5. Exergy efciency of double effect absorption refrigeration system versus HPG and LPG temperatures.

solution developed by Patek and Klomfar are used. Exergy loss of
each component is calculated. The effect of HPG and LPG temper-
atures on the rst and second law efciencies of the system is ana-
lyzed too.
The second law analysis used in this study facilitates the iden-
tication of the system components with high exergy loss.
The results of the exergy analysis presented in this paper can be
used in thermo-economic optimization of double effect absorption
refrigeration system.
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