International Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration

Vol. 26, No. 1 (2018) 1850002 (10 pages)

© World Scienti¯c Publishing Company
DOI: 10.1142/S2010132518500025

Performance Comparison of a Vapor-Adsorption

Cycle-Based Gas Turbine Inlet Air Cooling
System for Di®erent Refrigerants

Varuneswara Reddy Panyam*,‡, Veda Sai Kolla†,§, Lokesh Palawat†,¶,

Ayush Sahu†,|| and N. D. Banker†,**
*Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas 77843, USA
†Department of Mechanical Engineering

Shiv Nadar University

Gautam Buddha Nagar, Uttar Pradesh 201314, India
‡
panyamvarun@gmail.com
§
ks610@snu.edu.in
¶lp162@snu.edu.in
||as410@snu.edu.in
**nitin.banker@snu.edu.in

Received 7 August 2017

Accepted 27 November 2017
Published 8 January 2018

Presently, to enhance the thermal e±ciency of a gas turbine power plant, turbine inlet air cooling
(TIAC) is the widely used technique. The conventional refrigeration methods like vapor com-
pression refrigeration and evaporative cooling need electric power, hence absorption and ad-
sorption refrigeration systems are attractive options as they can be powered using the waste heat
energy of the exhaust gases. Adsorption system has advantages over absorption system like
scalability, requirement of lower heat source temperature, absence of corrosion and crystalliza-
tion. This paper focuses on the thermodynamic analysis of waste heat powered adsorption chiller
used for the cooling of intake air to enhance the net power output of the gas turbine power plant.
This paper also presents a comparative analysis of the vapor-adsorption cycle-based TIAC system
for four di®erent refrigerants viz. HFC-134a, carbon dioxide, ethanol and ammonia with the
motive of ¯nding a substitute refrigerant for HFC-134a which has a high global warming potential
(GWP). The adsorption chiller is mathematically modeled in MATLAB with activated carbon as
the adsorbent and each one of carbon dioxide, ethanol and ammonia as the adsorbate. The
variation of the coe±cient of performance (COP) and speci¯c cooling e®ect (SCE) with varying
adsorption temperatures is presented for each pair. The net power output and primary energy rate
(PER) improvement of the gas turbine power plant at di®erent ambient temperatures are also
discussed. It is observed that ammonia can improve the power plant performance signi¯cantly
better compared to the other three refrigerants at ambient temperatures less than 40
C.

Keywords: Adsorption refrigeration; turbine intake air cooling; HFC-134a; carbon dioxide; am-
monia; ethanol.

**Corresponding author.

1850002-1
V. R. Panyam et al.

Nomenclature T : Turbine
TI : Turbine inlet
A : Adsorption potential (J/mol) TO : Turbine outlet
b : Adsorption a±nity (Pa 1 )
bo : A±nity at in¯nite temperature (Pa 1 )
C : Speci¯c adsorbance
Co : Saturated amount adsorbed
Cp : Speci¯c heat at constant pressure (kJ/kg  K) 1. Introduction
D : Isosteric heat of adsorption (kJ/mol)
The predicaments of the present day energy sector,
E : Characteristic energy of the adsorption system (kJ/mol)
h : Speci¯c enthalpy (kJ/kg) like exhaust gases released from gas turbine power
m_ : Mass °ow rate (kg/s) plants exacerbating global warming and unprece-
m : Mass (kg) dented levels of energy consumption by humans,
n : Structural heterogeneity parameter make it imperative to focus research e®orts on im-
P : Pressure (Pa) proving the e±ciency of gas turbine power plants by
Q : Heat (kJ)
q : Heat °ow rate (kW)
utilizing the heat of the exhaust gases. In the past
qf : Heat energy rate given by fuel combustion two to three decades, various researchers have
SCE : Speci¯c cooling e®ect shown that gas turbine intake air cooling is an ef-
T : Temperature (
C) fective method to enhance the net power output of
W : Power (kW) the plant.1 To cool the intake air, many techniques
Z : Adsorbed volume (m 3 /kg) can be used such as evaporative cooling, vapor
Zo : Limiting volume of adsorption (m 3 /kg)
compression refrigeration system (VCRS) and vapor
absorption refrigeration system.1,2 Although evap-
orative cooling and VCRS are simple and compact
Greek symbols systems, they require electric power, whereas vapor

: E±ciency absorption refrigeration generates cooling using heat
 : Time (s) energy. It seems prudent to use the absorption cycle
 : Speci¯c volume (m 3 /kg) for intake air cooling due to ease of the availability
of waste heat from exhaust gases. But recently,
Panyam and Banker3 have reported that the ad-
Subscripts sorption cooling cycle can be more energy e±cient
with respect to the overall energy utilization as
a : Point `a' on adsorption cycle
ac : Activated carbon compared to the absorption cooling cycle. Also the
ad : Adsorbent other advantages of the adsorption cycle like scal-
ads : Adsorption ability of cooling capacity, availability of wide range
al : Aluminium of working pairs emphasize the need to explore ad-
air : Air sorption cooling for application in turbine inlet air
b : Point `b' on adsorption cycle
bo : Boiling
cooling (TIAC).4
c : Point `c' on adsorption cycle Numerous research works have reported on the
com : Compressor use of vapor adsorption refrigeration systems driven
CI : Compressor inlet by waste energy or solar energy to generate cooling.
CO : Compressor outlet Banker et al.5 carried out a thermodynamic analysis
cr : Critical
of an adsorption refrigeration system working with
d : Point `d' on adsorption cycle
des : Desorption the refrigerant HFC-134a and activated carbon as
e® : E®ective an adsorbent. The performance of the system was
eva : Evaporator compared with three types of the activated carbon,
fa : Fuel and air mixture Maxsorb, Chemviron and Fluka. They have built a
H : Higher laboratory model of an adsorption refrigeration
L : Lower
N : Net
system with Maxsorb as the adsorbent and HFC-
N 1 : Net with TIAC active 134a as the refrigerant for thermal management of
re : Refrigerant electronics.4 Jribi et al.6 have developed a mathe-
ref : Refrigeration matical model of carbon dioxide and activated car-
s : Saturation bon-based adsorption cooling system. With 80 kg of

1850002-2
 Performance Comparison of Vapor-Adsorption Cycle-Based Gas TIAC System
Table 1. Properties of the refrigerants used.
Critical
Refrigerant temperature (
C) pressure (bar)
CO2 30.98
Ethanol 240
Ammonia 132.89
HFC-134a 101.06
activated carbon, the system was able to achieve a
cooling capacity of 2 kW and a coe±cient of per-
formance (COP) of 0.1. Vinod and Anil7 carried out
the thermodynamic analysis of activated carbon and
carbon dioxide-based adsorption cooling system and
achieved maximum speci¯c cooling e®ect (SCE)
and COP of 25.87 kJ/kg and 0.09. El-Sharkawy
et al.8 have experimentally investigated activated
carbon–ethanol pair used in an adsorption cooling
system. They reported that a SCE of 420 kJ/kg is
possible using that pair which is very high compared
to many other pairs.6,9–11 Fadar et al.12 performed
the theoretical modeling of the activated carbon–
ammonia pair powered by a solar parabolic trough
and attained a COP of 0.18.
Very few adsorption chillers were also integrated
with power plants before. An optical company in
Japan developed a waste heat powered tri-genera-
tion system with an adsorption chiller using Silica
gel-water as working pair in 2003. 185 kW of exhaust
heat from a diesel engine was tapped to power the
system. This system was able to reduce the energy
consumption by 10% and carbon dioxide emissions
by 12%.13 A laboratory prototype of an adsorption
air-conditioning system with Zeolite-water as
working pair, powered by the exhaust heat of the
diesel locomotive was designed by Lu et al.14 They
reported a mean cooling power of 3.3 kW at an
evaporator temperature of 7
C and a condenser
temperature of 40
C. Christy and Toossi15 evalu-
ated the performance of R-134a and ammonia when
used in adsorption air-conditioning in buses and
trailers powered by their exhaust heat. More re-
cently, Panyam and Banker3 have proposed an ad-
sorption refrigeration system running on HFC-134a
and activated carbon driven by the waste heat of a
gas turbine.
In the current scenario, a key aspect in choosing
the refrigerant for any cooling system is its extent of
negative impact on the environment. It is known
that the refrigerants like HFCs and CFCs are major
Critical
ODP GWP Flammability and toxicity
73.8 0 1 Non°ammable and nontoxic
61.48 0 0 Flammable and nontoxic
112.8 0 0 Non°ammable and toxic
40.59 0 1200 Non°ammable and nontoxic
concerns to environmental harmony due to their
tendency to aggravate global warming as well as
ozone layer depletion. The ¯rst major step to curb
the use of these refrigerants came through the
Montreal protocol implemented in 1989. Accord-
ingly, CFCs have been phased out in a gradual
manner.16 Consequently, production and usage of
HCFCs have been restrained. Though HFCs do not
harm the ozone layer, they contribute to global
warming. Hence, their use should be discontinued
according to the newer Kyoto protocol.17 With
HFCs set to be completely replaced by the end of
this decade, alternatives to HFC refrigerants must
be explored. Since CO2, ethanol and ammonia have
negligible global warming potential (GWP) and
ozone depleting potential (ODP), HFC-134a can be
potentially replaced by these refrigerants. The var-
ious properties of these refrigerants are given in
Table 1. Activated carbon seems to have good ad-
sorption dynamics with the above mentioned
refrigerants.3,6,8,18 It also has a very high surface
area and density allowing high quantity of adsor-
bate in less amount of volume and hence it has been
considered for the present analysis.
With the objective to choose the best replace-
ment refrigerant for the adsorption system, this
paper presents a performance comparison of etha-
nol, carbon dioxide and ammonia with that of
R-134a when used in the vapor-adsorption cycle to
cool the inlet air of a gas turbine using a set of
performance parameters.
2. Vapor-Adsorption Cycle
Thermal compression cycle in an adsorption com-
pressor, consisting of four steps is shown in Fig. 1. It
depicts the four processes on a P–C–T graph: ad-
sorption (a–b), heating (b–c), desorption (c–d) and
cooling (d–a). The compressor bed needs to be
cooled (d–a) before adsorption and heated (b–c)
before desorption. The cycle a–b–c–d–a is however
1850002-3
V. R. Panyam et al.
Fig. 1. Compressor cycle in vapor adsorption system (Ideal
cycle: a–b–c–d, Actual cycle: a 0 –b–c 0 –d).
an ideal cycle. The adsorbent material inherently
possesses some void spaces which trap some adsor-
bate. Hence the real cycle follows a 0 –b–c 0 –d–a 0 .5
3. Thermodynamic Modeling
The system consists of a gas turbine power plant
and a TIAC system which is the adsorption chiller.
A schematic of the system is shown in Fig. 2. The
¯gure shows the °ow of the working °uid in the gas
Fig. 2. Schematic of the power plant and TIAC system.
1850002-4
turbine power plant and the adsorption chiller and
how they are connected. At ¯rst, ambient air from
the atmosphere °ows into chiller where its temper-
ature is decreased. The cooled air now °ows into the
compressor, where its temperature and pressure are
increased. Then it passes through the recuperator
where its temperature is increased further before
reaching the combustor. In the combustor, hot air is
mixed together with a stream of fuel. After com-
bustion, the stream of hot gases leaving the com-
bustion chamber passes through a gas turbine to
produce power, the ¯rst product of the system. Part
of this power is used to drive the compressor. The
exhaust gases that leave the gas turbine passes
through the recuperator where it heats the inlet air
°owing from compressor to combustor. The exhaust
gases then pass through the heat exchanger to heat
the water which is passed through the adsorption
system to heat the adsorbent cylinder and lets the
desorption process happen. The refrigeration part of
the system is comprised of adsorption compressor,
condenser, expansion device and an evaporator.
Ambient water is also sent over the adsorbent bed to
cool it before adsorption.
Using thermodynamic equations, a MATLAB
code is written to model the gas turbine power plant
 Performance Comparison of Vapor-Adsorption Cycle-Based Gas TIAC System

and an adsorption cooling system for all the four the characteristic energy of the adsorption system
refrigerants. and n is the structural heterogeneity parameter.
The adsorption potential (A) is the work done
during the isothermal compression of 1 mole of
3.1. Gas turbine power plant vapor from saturation pressure (Ps ) to the pressure
Ambient temperature, compression ratio of com- of interest, with T being the saturation temperature
pressor, type of fuel and its mass °ow rate, volu- at that pressure, and is given by
metric °ow rate of air, gas turbine and compressor  
Ps
e±ciencies are considered as the operating variables A ¼ RT ln : ð6Þ
to the simulation model. Compressor power input, P
turbine power output and net power output are The speci¯c adsorbance C (mass of adsorbate per
computed as the performance parameters. mass of adsorbent) is given by
Wcom ¼ m_ air  Cpair  ðTCO  TCI Þ ; ð1Þ Z
C¼ ; ð7Þ
WT ¼
T  ðm_ air þ m_ f Þ  Cpfa  ðTT I  TT O Þ ; ð2Þ a
a ¼ b exp½ðT  Tb Þ ; ð8Þ
WN ¼ WT  Wcom : ð3Þ   
b
ln
b
¼ ; ð9Þ
3.2. Vapor adsorption compressor ðTcr  Tbo Þ
The pivotal component of an adsorption chiller is where  is the speci¯c volume and the subscripts \a"
the compressor. Compressor design depends pri- and \b" refer to the thermodynamic conditions of
marily on the adsorption and desorption tempera- the adsorbate at the adsorbed state (T ; P ) and at its
tures. Evaporator temperature is taken as 0
C and normal boiling point (Tbo ), respectively. Tcr is the
the adsorption/condenser temperature is taken critical temperature of the adsorbate, and b is the
equal to the ambient temperature. Desorption Van der Waals volume. For R-134a,
temperature is assumed to be 90
C.
Tbo ¼ 246:78 K ;
To measure the performance of the adsorption
compressor, SCE is evaluated for each refrigerant Tcr ¼ 374:21 K ;
system. SCE is de¯ned as the cooling power
m3
obtained using 1 kg of the activated carbon (adsor- b ¼ 7:2643  10 4 ;
bent). It allows to directly compare the cooling kg
capabilities of di®erent pairs which have di®erent m3
b ¼ 9:39  10 4 :
cycle times. kg
ðCb  Cd Þ  ð
heva Þ
SCE ¼ : ð4Þ 3.2.2. Carbon dioxide and activated
2 carbon pair
Cb and Cd are evaluated from the isotherm correla- For carbon dioxide-activated carbon pair, the ad-
tions for each di®erent working pair. sorption isotherms correlated using Toth's model
are better matching with the experimental data of
3.2.1. R-134a and activated carbon pair Saha et al.20 when compared to the modi¯ed DA
Adsorption isotherms of activated carbon with model. The equilibrium amount of carbon dioxide
HFC-134a are correlated using the following equa- that can be adsorbed on activated carbon according
tion derived from Dubinin–Astakhov (DA) isotherm to Toth's model is given by the equation
model5,19: bP
 n C ¼ C0 ; ð10Þ
ð1 þ ðbP Þ n Þ n
1
A
ln Z ¼ ln Zo  ; ð5Þ
E
where
where Z is the adsorbed volume, Zo is the limiting
b ¼ b0 e ð RT Þ :
D

volume of adsorption space of the adsorbent, E is ð11Þ

1850002-5
V. R. Panyam et al.
Here, C is the amount adsorbed, C0 is the saturated
amount adsorbed, D is the isosteric heat of adsorp-
tion, n is the heterogeneity factor, P is the equilib-
rium Pressure, R is the universal gas constant
(kJ/mol  K).
The values of C0 ; b0 ; D and n are 3.06 kg kg 1 ,
106 Pa 1 , 20.37 KJ mol 1 and 0.664, respectively.6,21
3.2.3. Ethanol and activated carbon pair
Adsorption isotherms of activated carbon with
ethanol can be correlated by the DA equation
 n
A qref ¼ m_ re 
heva :
ln C ¼ ln Co  ; ð12Þ
E
where C is the equilibrium uptake of the adsorbent–
refrigerant pair, Co is the maximum adsorption ca-
pacity, A is the adsorption potential given by
Eq. (8), E is the adsorption characteristic parameter
of the adsorbent–adsorbate pair, which is evaluated
experimentally and n is the structural heterogeneity
parameter.8
For the ethanol-activated carbon pair
Co ¼ 1:2 kg/kg, n ¼ 1:75 and E ¼ 5538 J/mol .
3.2.4. Ammonia and activated carbon pair
The equilibrium adsorption uptake of ammonia on
activated carbon can be computed using the modi-
¯ed DA equation.18
   n
T
C ¼ CO exp k 1 ; ð13Þ
TS
where C is the amount adsorbed, CO is the saturated
amount adsorbed ¼ 0.4655, k is the 4.282 (Dubinin
coe±cient), n is the 0.81, TS is the saturation tem-
perature of refrigerant, T is the temperature of
adsorbent.
3.3. Cooling capacity
The mass of activated carbon is ¯xed as 20 kg. Mass
of refrigerant required to realize the required con-
centration di®erence is arrived at using the following
equations:
mac  ðCb  Cd Þ
mad ¼ ; ð14Þ
2 4. Results and Discussion
m
m_ re ¼ ad ; ð15Þ
ads
where ads is the time for adsorption and the sub-
scripts b and d refer to the states shown in Fig. 1.
1850002-6
Each of the refrigerants has di®erent adsorption/
desorption time due to which the cycle time also
varies. The adsorption/desorption times have been
taken as 600, 300, 600 and 100 s for CO2,6 R-134a,22
ethanol23 and ammonia,24 respectively.
Void volume is assumed to occupy 50% volume of
the adsorbent which is why the denominator in the
equation in Eq. (15) is 2.25
Cooling capacity (qref ) will be equal to the prod-
uct of refrigerant mass °ow rate and speci¯c en-
thalpy change in evaporator.
ð16Þ
The COP of the adsorption chiller can be expressed
as
SCE
COP ¼ : ð17Þ
Qtotal
Qtotal is the amount of heat that has to be added
during heating phase of the compressor for 1 kg of
activated carbon.
The amount of heat required to be added during
desorption is equal to the sum of heat required by
activated carbon (Qac ), aluminium casing (Qal ), re-
frigerant (Qref ) and heat of desorption (Qdes ). It is
calculated using the following generalized equation:
Q ¼ m 
h : ð18Þ
3.4. Primary energy rate
Primary energy rate (PER), de¯ned as the ratio of
the primary energy demand to the required output,
is used to evaluate the energy e±ciency of the power
plant.3
qf
PER ¼ : ð19Þ
Cooling capacity þ WN
However, with a TIAC system in place, the cooling
capacity is removed in the denominator for PER
calculations. This is because the net power output is
being improved at the expense of the cooling gen-
erated by the system.
The following assumptions were made for the gas
turbine power plant: the pressure ratio is taken as
3.8, the compressor e±ciency as 0.92, the turbine
e±ciency as 0.93, evaporator temperature as 0
C,
 Performance Comparison of Vapor-Adsorption Cycle-Based Gas TIAC System

the volumetric °ow rate of air as 0.83 m3/h and the

fuel-air mass °ow rate ratio as 1/190.

4.1. Validation of the mathematical

model
The mathematical model has been validated with
the experimental data generated by Ge et al.26 They
have built a tri-generation system with an absorp-
tion chiller. The prime mover is a gas turbine. The
turbine power output and compressor power input
values for simulation and experiment26 are plotted
with ambient temperature varying from 10
C to
35
C. All the speci¯cations of the turbine in the Fig. 4. Variation of SCE with ambient temperature.
mathematical model were considered as speci¯ed in
Ge et al.26
It can be observed from Fig. 3 that the simulation noting is that at 30
C, the plots of SCE of ammonia
values are very close to the experimental values for and R-134a cross each other with R-134a giving
the turbine power output and compressor power better SCE above that. Carbon dioxide seems to
input. o®er a very low SCE at almost all the adsorption
temperatures. However, the di®erence in SCE
achieved by carbon dioxide and other three refrig-
4.2. SCE erants becomes signi¯cantly less at adsorption
The variation of SCE with ambient temperature temperatures ranging from 35
–40
C. R-134a per-
(also adsorption temperature) is plotted in Fig. 4. forms consistently with SCE values dropping from
While ethanol o®ers a very high SCE at adsorption 59.1 to only 20.6 kJ/kg for ambient temperature
temperatures less than 35
C, it drastically reduces ranging from 25
C to 40
C.
beyond that temperature. This behavior of ethanol
is because the concentration di®erence (Cb  Cd ) is
4.3. COP
derived directly from DA equation, unlike R-134a
for which speci¯c volume is derived from the DA COP variation of the adsorption chiller with ambi-
equation. As can be seen from the plot, at around ent temperature for di®erent refrigerants is similar
40
C, R-134a o®ers the highest SCE. Also, worth to the plot of SCE. The plot can be seen in Fig. 5.
COP depends on the SCE as well as the speci¯c
heat requirement of the adsorbent bed. The heat

Fig. 3. Variation of turbine power output and compressor

power input in simulation and experiment26 with ambient
temperatures. Fig. 5. Variation of COP with ambient temperature.

1850002-7
V. R. Panyam et al.

requirement of the bed is given by Eq. (18), and it

decreases with decreasing adsorption temperature.
But it is observed that the overall e®ect on COP
is mostly dominated by SCE. The obtained
COP values are in the same range as reported
by Jribi et al.6 — for CO2 around 0.1; El-Sharkawy
et al.8 — for ethanol around 0.4; Tamainot-Telto
et al.27 — for ammonia around 0.4 and Loh et al.28 —
for R-134a around 0.2.
The model with ethanol gives the highest COP of
0.53 at 25
C. At an ambient temperature of 40
C,
R-134a gives the highest COP of 0.098 slightly
higher than that of ethanol. COPs achieved by using
ammonia and carbon dioxide are not competitive Fig. 6. Variation of compressor inlet air temperature with
with ethanol and R-134a in the normal ambient ambient temperature.
temperature range of 30
–40
C.
In the estimation of COP and SCE, it is observed
that the time of adsorption/desorption has not been
playing a role because the mass of activated is con-
sidered to be constant for each of the refrigerant.
However, the cooling capacity depends on the time
of adsorption/desorption and consequently the
compressor inlet temperature, net power output and
PER. They have been discussed elaborately in the
following sections.

4.4. Compressor inlet temperature

The ambient air after getting cooled by the ad-
sorption chiller °ows into the compressor. Using
energy balance in the evaporator, the compressor
inlet air temperature has been calculated. The
variation in the compressor inlet temperatures at
various ambient temperatures for all the four
refrigerants has been plotted in Fig. 6. It is observed
from the plot that the lowest compressor inlet air
temperatures are possible with ammonia, followed
by ethanol, R-134a and CO2. It is interesting to note
here that even though ethanol has the highest COP
and SCE, due to the lowest adsorption/desorption
times of ammonia, the adsorption system with am-
monia delivers the best cooling capacity and subse-
quently lower compressor inlet temperatures.
4.5. Net power output
Figure 7 illustrates the variation in the net power
output with ambient temperatures. Due to lower
compressor inlet air temperatures, mass °ow rate of
air into the compressor increases, ultimately in-
creasing the net power output.
Fig. 7. Variation of net power output with ambient
temperature.
Net power output without TIAC ranges from
57.1 kW to 47.04 kW for ambient temperatures
25
C to 40
C. Utilizing TIAC with ethanol, the net
power improves to 63.77 kW at 25
C and to
47.59 kW at 40
C. With R-134a, the net power
reaches 59.86 kW at 25
C and 47.93 kW at 40
C.
For adsorption cycle with ammonia, the TIAC can
bring out a net power output increase of 9.93 kW at
25
C and 0.96 kW at 40
C, while carbon dioxide-
based TIAC enhances net power by 0.75 kW at 25
C
and 0.11 kW at 40
C. The plot indicates that
ammonia will be a good choice in regions where
ambient temperature varies widely.
4.6. PER
PER is an important parameter which measures the
e®ectiveness of the whole system based on the

1850002-8
 Performance Comparison of Vapor-Adsorption Cycle-Based Gas TIAC System
Fig. 8. Variation of PER with ambient temperature.
energy generated and used. The plot of PER versus
ambient temperature with and without TIAC is
shown in Fig. 8. PER values stood at 3.85 and 4.44
at ambient temperature of 25
C and 40
C, respec-
tively, without using TIAC. The lower the PER, the
better is the energy e±ciency of the unit. The trend
of improvement in PER values with TIAC is similar
to that observed in net power output with ammonia
outperforming the others. The highest PER occurs
with CO2 which is closer to the value obtained
without TIAC making it the least performer of all
the four.
At lower ambient temperatures, the di®erences in
the PER values achieved by various refrigerants are
higher as compared to higher ambient temperatures,
where all are nearly the same.
5. Conclusions
This paper presents performance comparison of
three environment friendly refrigerants, namely,
carbon dioxide, ammonia and ethanol-based ad-
sorption refrigeration systems to replace the HFC-
134a refrigerant which has a high global warming
potential. The adsorption system is driven by gas
turbine power plant waste exhaust gas. The paper
also discusses the e®ect of adsorption cooling-based
TIAC on the net power output of the gas power
plant. COP and PER are the main performance
parameters used in the thermodynamic analysis.
The analysis of the results shows that highest
COP can be achieved with ethanol and then am-
monia, HFC-134a and CO2. But ammonia, having
the lowest adsorption/desorption time, has the
highest the cooling capacity and consequently can
1850002-9
achieve the lowest PER, followed by ethanol,
R-134a and CO2. It suggests that ammonia and
ethanol can be suitable replacements for the R-134a.
CO2, even though having the lowest GWP and
ODP, is the worst performing among all the refrig-
erants analyzed. CO2 is also a very high pressure
refrigerant and the system design cost would be
signi¯cantly higher as compared to the other
refrigerants. Hence, it is concluded that it is not an
appropriate alternative to R-134a for adsorption-
based TIAC.
Above an ambient temperature of 40
C, the PER
values achieved are nearly same with all the refrig-
erants, which concludes that at higher ambient
temperatures, the e®ect of the refrigerant on the
system performance diminishes.
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