Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 985–991

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

Modeling and simulation of an activated carbon–CO2 four bed based

adsorption cooling system
Skander Jribi a,⇑, Bidyut Baran Saha b,c, Shigeru Koyama d, Hatem Bentaher a
a
Laboratory of Electro-Mechanical Systems, The Engineers National School of Sfax, University of Sfax, Route de Soukra km 3.5, BP 1173, 3038 Sfax, Tunisia
b
Mechanical Engineering Department, Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
c
International Institute for Carbon-Neutral Energy Research (WPI-I2CNER), Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
d
Department of Energy and Environmental Engineering, Kyushu University, 6-1 Kasuga-koen, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan

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

Article history: In this study, a transient mathematical model of a 4-bed adsorption chiller using Maxsorb III as the adsor-
Available online 25 October 2013 bent and CO2 as the refrigerant has been analyzed. The performances of the cyclic-steady-state system
are presented for different heating and cooling water inlet temperatures. It is found that the desorption
Keywords: pressure has a big influence in the performances due to the low critical point of CO2 (Tc = 31 °C). With
Transient model 80 kg of Maxsorb III, the CO2 based adsorption chiller produces 2 kW of cooling power and presents a
Carbon dioxide COP of 0.1, at driving heat source temperature of 95 °C along with a cooling temperature of 27 °C and
Maxsorb III
at optimum desorption pressure of 79 bar. The present thermal compression air-conditioning system
COP
Cooling capacity
could be driven with solar energy or waste heat from internal combustion engines and therefore is suit-
able for both residential and mobile air-conditioning applications.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction is a non-toxic and non-flammable natural refrigerant with a zero

In the last two decades, environmental concerns have been the
driving forces for reliable and pollution free cooling systems; the
refrigeration and air-conditioning industry has been moving from
HCFC to HFC refrigerants. However, the global warming problem
is being intensified due to the utilization of HFC refrigerants in
cooling systems and HFC emissions from refrigeration and air-con-
ditioning units, projected to represent 9–19% of total greenhouse
gas emissions in 2050 [1]. In the current context, the adsorption
cooling systems seem to be feasible alternatives to mechanical va-
por compression cooling systems. Indeed, the adsorption cooling
cycles possess the advantage of employing natural and low global
warming potential (GWP) refrigerants such as water [2,3], ammo-
nia [4,5], methanol [6,7], ethanol [8,9], and HFO-1234ze [10]. In
addition, the solar energy or the waste heat could be used as the
driving heat source for the adsorption chillers. Nowadays, adsorp-
tion cooling systems such as water/silica gel, water/zeolite and
ammonia/activated carbon are commercialized. Manufacturers of
these systems are trying to make compact systems, reduce the cost
and increase the efficiency to compete with the vapor compression
systems. From the other side, carbon dioxide is expected to be the
next generation refrigerant for vehicle air-conditioning, commer-
cial/residential cooling and large refrigeration systems [11]. CO2
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +216 41 573 257; fax: +216 74 275 595.
E-mail address: Skander.Jribi@issig.rnu.tn (S. Jribi).
ODP and a negligible GWP equal to one [12]. The properties of
CO2 are well established and they are quite different from all the
conventional refrigerants [13,14]. Many studies showed that the
unique properties of CO2 could be exploited to improve the perfor-
mance of vapor-compression cooling systems [15–18].
The main objective of this paper is to investigate the perfor-
mance of an adsorption cooling cycle powered by waste heat or so-
lar energy and employing the low GWP refrigerant, CO2. These
results are scarce in the literature.
2. Description of the adsorption cooling cycle
Fig. 1 shows the schematic diagram of the 4-bed adsorption
chiller which consists of: a gas cooler, an evaporator, 4 adsorber/
desorber heat exchangers filled with the activated carbon powder
of type Maxsorb III and an expansion valve. Firstly, the refrigerant,
CO2, is evaporated in the evaporator. Secondly, the refrigerant
passes through thermal compression by adsorption/desorption
processes; The bed in adsorption process adsorbs the CO2 which
comes from the evaporator. As the adsorption process is exother-
mic, a cooling source is employed to remove the heat generated
during this process. After that, the sorption element is discon-
nected from the evaporator and is heated by hot water until reach-
ing the gas cooler pressure; this process is known as the pre-
heating process. At the end of pre-heating process, the valve be-
tween the sorption element and the gas cooler is opened and

0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2013.06.061
986 S. Jribi et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 985–991

Nomenclature

m_ mass flow rate (kg s1) T temperature (K)

A area (m2) t heterogeneity factor (–), time (s)
b0 affinity at infinite temperature (Pa1) U overall heat transfer coefficient (W m2 K1)
C adsorbed amount (kg kg1)
c instantaneous uptake (kg kg1) Subscripts
C0 maximum uptake (kg kg1) ads adsorption
CC cooling capacity (kW) bed sorption heat exchanger
COP coefficient of performance (–) chill chilled water
cp specific heat capacity (J kg1 K1) cool cooling water
h enthalpy (J kg1) cw cooling water of gas cooler
ID inner diameter (mm) cycle cycle time (s)
ksav overall mass transfer coefficient (s1) des desorption
M, m mass (kg) evap evaporator
OD outer diameter (mm) gc gas cooler
P pressure (Pa) hot hot water
Q heat (W); isosteric heat of adsorption (J kg1) in inlet
Qst heat of adsorption (J kg1) MX3 Maxsorb III
R gas constant (J kg1 K1) out outlet

CO2 is desorbed from the activated carbon at gas cooler pressure. 3.1. Adsorption isotherms
The required heat input during the desorption process is taken
from the solar energy or waste heat. In the third process, the refrig- The equilibrium amount of CO2 adsorbed onto Maxsorb III have
erant desorbed from the activated carbon is then rooted to the gas been investigated experimentally [19] and To9 th equation (Eq. (1))
cooler where it is cooled down by the cooling water. Finally, the is used to correlate the adsorption data.
refrigerant is expanded with the expansion valve. In this study,
bP
we considered one-way valves between desorption beds and gas C ¼ C0 1
ð1Þ
t
cooler; that is the desorbed refrigerant could not pass to the gas ð1 þ ðbPÞ Þ t
cooler only after reaching gas cooling pressure which is regulated
C is the amount adsorbed, C0 is the saturated amount adsorbed, P is
by a relief valve. Similarly, the one-way valves between the evap-
the equilibrium pressure, t is the heterogeneity factor and b is the
orator and adsorption beds open when the adsorption pressure is
adsorption affinity given by:
lower than the evaporation pressure.
Q
b ¼ b0 eðRT Þ ð2Þ
3. Mathematical model
b0 is the adsorption affinity at infinite temperature and Q is the isos-
teric heat of adsorption. The parameters C0, b0, Q and t are equals to
Based on the confirmed adsorption isotherm data, adsorption
3.06 kg kg1, 106 Pa1, 20.37 kJ mol1 and 0.664, respectively.
kinetics, adsorption heat and system geometry of the adsorber/
desorber beds, evaporator and gas cooler, the following mathemat-
ical model have been developed. 3.2. Heat of adsorption

Cooling The Clausius–Clapeyron (C–C) equation (Eq. (3)) is used to com-

water
pute the heat of adsorption.
Gas Cooler/  
Condenser @ ln P
Q st ¼ RT 2 ð3Þ
@T C
Cooling Cooling Hot Hot The C–C heat of adsorption applied to To9 th isotherm is constant
water water water water
and equals the parameter Q of Eq. (2).
Expansion
valve 3.3. Adsorption kinetics

The linear driving force theory (Eq. (4)) is widely used to corre-
SE1 SE2 SE3 SE4 late the adsorption rate of adsorbent–adsorbate pairs.
dc
¼ ks av ðC  cÞ ð4Þ
Evaporator
dt
C is the equilibrium uptake, c stands for instantaneous uptake and
Chilled ksav is the overall mass transfer coefficient estimated experimen-
water
tally for the adsorption of CO2 onto activated carbon beads [20].
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the 4-bed-adsorption cooling system. SE1 (sorption
 
1915
element 1), SE2, SE3 and SE4 are in pre-cooling, adsorption, desorption and pre- ks av ¼ exp  þ 1:776 ð5Þ
heating processes, respectively. T
 S. Jribi et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 985–991 987

3.4. Adsorption bed energy balance 3.8. Mass balance

For the bed in adsorption process, generating a heat of adsorp- The mass balance implies that the adsorbed amount in the acti-
tion and cooled with the cooling water, the change of internal en- vated carbon is equal to the mass desorbed:
ergy is equal to:
mads ¼ mdes ð14Þ
dT bed;ads dcads The masses adsorbed and desorbed are given by the following
ðMcp Þbed ¼ M MX3 ðQ st þ hbed;ads  hev ap;out Þ
dt dt equations, respectively.
_ p Þcool ðT cool;out  T cool;in Þ
 ðmc ð6Þ
dmads dcads
¼ M MX3 ð15Þ
The cooling water outlet temperature is modeled by the log dt dt
mean temperature difference (LMTD) method given by:
dmdes dcdes
  ¼ M MX3 ð16Þ
UAbed dt dt
T cool;out ¼ T bed;ads þ ðT cool;in  T bed;ads Þ exp ð7Þ
_ p Þcool
ðmc
3.9. Energy balance

3.5. Desorption bed energy balance The energy balance (Eq. (17)) implies that the heats adsorbed by
evaporator and desorption beds are equal to the heats rejected by
For the bed in desorption process, heated by the heating water gas cooler and adsorption beds and this is written as:
and absorbing the heat of desorption, the change of internal energy
is equal to:
Q chill þ Q des ¼ Q gc þ Q ads ð17Þ

dT bed;des dcdes
ðMcp Þbed ¼ M MX3 _ p Þhot ðT hot;in  T hot;out Þ
Q  ðmc ð8Þ 3.10. System performance
dt dt st
The hot water outlet temperature is determined by: The adsorption cooling cycle is an intermittent cycle and there-
  fore the system performance of the CO2 adsorption chiller is calcu-
UAbed lated after achieving a cyclic-steady-state operation and for one
T hot;out ¼ T bed;des þ ðT hot;in  T bed;des Þ exp ð9Þ
_ p Þhot
ðmc complete cycle time that is: pre-heating time + desorption time +
pre-cooling time + adsorption time. The average chilling capacity
and the average COP during one cycle time are expressed by the
3.6. Evaporator energy balance following equations, respectively.
R tcycle
_ p Þchill ðT chill;in  T chill;out Þdt
ðmc
The change in evaporator’s internal energy due to the evapora- Q chill ¼ 0
ð18Þ
tion of the refrigerant and due to the heat exchange with the tcycle
chilled water is described as:
R tcycle
_ p Þchill ðT chill;in  T chill;out Þdt
ðmc
dT ev ap dcads COP ¼ R0 tcycle ð19Þ
ðMcp Þev ap ¼ M MX3 ðhev ap;out  hev ap;in Þ 0
_ p Þhot ðT hot;in  T hot;out Þdt
ðmc
dt dt
_ p Þchill ðT chill;out  T chill;in Þ
 ðmc ð10Þ The efficiency of the proposed AC-CO2 based adsorption cooling
cycle is given by:
The chilled water outlet temperature is given by:
COPAC-CO2
  g¼  100 ð20Þ
UAev ap COPCarnot
T chill;out ¼ T ev ap þ ðT chill;out  T ev ap Þ exp ð11Þ
_ p Þchill
ðmc
where the Carnot COP of an adsorption cooling cycle is given by the
The overall heat transfer coefficient (UAevap) is estimated for an following equation;
average heat transfer coefficient for the flow boiling of CO2 in T des  T ads T ev ap
round-tube [21]. COPCarnot ¼  ð21Þ
T des T gc  T ev ap
with Tdes, Tgc, Tads and Tevap indicating respectively, the limit temper-
3.7. Gas cooler energy balance
atures of desorber, gas cooler, adsorber, and evaporator.

The change in gas cooler’s internal energy due to the heat ex-
4. Simulation procedure
change between the hot refrigerant and the cooling source is writ-
ten as:
The programming language Matlab is used to simulate the sys-
dT gc dcdes tem transient response and the embedded function ODE45 is uti-
ðMcp Þgc ¼ M MX3 _ p Þcw ðT cw;out  T cw;in Þ
ððhbed;des  hgc ÞÞ  ðmc ð12Þ
dt dt lized to solve the differential equations. The program starts with
the initialization of (i) constants (isotherm equation constants,
The cooling water outlet temperature from gas cooler is given
kinetics constants and components’ geometry), (ii) variables (hot,
by:
cooling and chilled water inlet temperatures, desorption pressure
  and adsorption/desorption cycle times), and (iii) estimated initial
UAgc
T cw;out ¼ T gc þ ðT cw;in  T gc Þ exp ð13Þ values of differential equation parameters (Tevap, Tcond, Tbed1,. . .,4,
_ p Þcw
ðmc
c1,. . .,4). The system design constants of evaporator, gas cooler and
The gas cooler overall heat transfer coefficient (UAgc) is esti- adsorber/desorber beds used in the simulation are furnished in Ta-
mated for an average heat transfer coefficient for the forced con- ble 1. The evaporator and gas cooler are stainless steel tube-in-tube
vection cooling of CO2 in microchannel tube [21]. heat exchangers weighting 5.4 kg and having heat transfer area of
988 S. Jribi et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 985–991

Table 1
Parameters of the adsorption cooling cycle.

Symbols Values Units

MMX3/bed 20 kg
_ p Þcool;hot
ðmc 2926 W K1
_ p Þcw;chill
ðmc 836 W K1
(Mcp)bed 42,100 J K1
(Mcp)gc 2484 J K1
(Mcp)evap 2484 J K1
UAbed 505 W K1
UAgc 742 W K1
UAevap 850 W K1

0.16 m2. The inner tube has OD = 9.5 mm and thickness of 1.2 mm.
The outer tube has OD = 19.1 mm and thickness of 1.2 mm. The ad-
Fig. 3. Pressure–temperature–concentration (P–T–X) diagram of the Maxsorb III–
sorber/desorber beds consist of: (i) stainless steel vessel of 20 kg, CO2 adsorption cooling cycle.
(ii) 20 kg of activated carbon Maxsorb III with specific heat capac-
ity, Cp,MX3 = 1.375 kJ kg1 K1 and thermal conductivity, hMX3 = 10 -
W m1 K1 [22] and (iii) 7 copper tubes for cooling/heating water
of length L = 1 m, ID = 23 mm, OD = 25 mm. The program also calls
the REFPROP routines (NIST Standard Reference Database 23, v.
7.0) to compute the refrigerant’s thermophysical properties. The
key system variables are constantly computed and updated by
numerical integration with time.

5. Results and discussion

Fig. 2 shows the temperature profiles of the different heat

exchangers (gas cooler, evaporator and sorption elements) of the
proposed Maxsorb III/CO2 adsorption chiller. In this figure, the
hot, cooling and chilled water inlet temperatures are taken as 85,
30 and 15 °C, respectively; the adsorption/desorption cycle times
are fixed to 363 s; the desorption pressure is taken 8.5 MPa and Fig. 4. Pressure–enthalpy (P–h) diagram of the Maxsorb III–CO2 adsorption cooling
cycle.
the switching time for pre-cooling and pre-heating processes are
set automatically to the time at which the pressure in the heated
bed becomes equal to the desorption pressure. It can be seen from
Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C
Fig. 2 that the adsorption chiller attains cyclic-steady state opera- 2
tion within 2 cycle times, that is 1706 s. 1,8
Cooling capacity (kW)

Fig. 3 shows the pressure–temperature–concentration (P–T–X) 1,6

diagram of the Maxsorb III–CO2 based adsorption cooling cycle. 1,4
The thermal compression cycle which consists of the four thermo- 1,2
dynamic processes namely, pre-heating (1–2), desorption (2–3), 1
pre-cooling (3–4) and adsorption (4–1) is also plotted in the same 0,8
figure. It can be noticed that the desorption phase is made at con- 0,6
stant pressure as the gas cooling process is performed in the super- 0,4
0,2
0
7 7,5 8 8,5 9 9,5 10
Tbed1 Tbed2 Tbed3 Tbed4 Thot,in Gas Cooler Pressure (MPa)

Fig. 5. Effect of desorption pressure on cooling capacity (Thot,in = 85 °C,

Tchill,in = 15 °C).

critical region. At the end of adsorption process, a small rise in

evaporation pressure can be observed due to the switching of
bed operation from adsorption to pre-heating.
Tcool,in Fig. 4 shows the pressure–enthalpy (P–h) diagram of the CO2
Tgc
Tchill,in adsorption chiller based on the average temperatures of evapora-
tion and gas cooling processes. The thermal compression cycle is
Tevap also presented in the same diagram. Due to the low critical temper-
ature of carbon dioxide (Tc = 31 °C), the gas cooling process is real-
ized in the supercritical region which means that the pressure
inside the gas cooler is independent from the temperature. Conse-
Fig. 2. Temperature profiles of evaporator, gas cooler and the 4 beds of the quently, the gas cooling pressure and gas cooler outlet temperature
simulated cycle. dictate the fraction of refrigerant being liquefied (quality) and
 S. Jribi et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 985–991 989

therefore the heat of evaporation exchanged with the chilled Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C
water. 0,12
The effect of desorption pressure (Pdes) on the cooling capacity
0,1
(CC) and COP are shown in Figs. 5 and 6 respectively. For cooling
water inlet temperatures of 27, 32 and 37 °C, the CC and COP at- 0,08
tains their maximum at optimum desorption pressures of 7.9, 8.7

COP
and 9.3 MPa, respectively. In fact, the CC and COP increase with 0,06
the increase of desorption pressure (Pdes) until reaching the opti-
0,04
mal value; because the liquid fraction of the expanded refrigerant
is higher. Above the optimal value, the CC and COP decrease; this 0,02
means that the increase in Pdes decreases the mass desorbed and
therefore the cooling capacity. In other words, the increase in li- 0
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
quid mass evaporated no longer compensates the decrease in
refrigerant flow rate. It can be noticed also from Figs. 5 and 6 that Adsorption/Desorption time (min)
both the cooling capacity and COP decrease with the increase of Fig. 8. Effect of adsorption/desorption time on COP (Thot,in = 85 °C, Tchill,in = 15 °C).
cooling water inlet temperature. This is due to the decrease in
the amount of refrigerant adsorbed in the activated carbon with
higher coolant temperatures. Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C
The effect of adsorption/desorption time on the cooling capacity 2,2
of the proposed Maxsorb III–CO2 adsorption chiller is presented in 2

Cooling Capacity (kW)

Fig. 7. The cooling capacity reaches its maximum capacity at 1,8
1,6
adsorption/desorption time equals 576, 666 and 702 s, which cor-
1,4
responds to the optimal time for the adsorption/desorption pro-
1,2
cess, for cooling water inlet temperature of 27, 32 and 37 °C,
1
respectively, and for optimal desorption pressure of 7.9, 8.7 and
0,8
9.3 MPa, respectively. The total cycle time including the pre-heat- 0,6
ing and pre-cooling phases is found to be 1343, 1585 and 1729 s, 0,4
respectively. 0,2
The effect of adsorption/desorption time on the COP is shown in 0
Fig. 8 for cooling water inlet temperature of 27, 32 and 37 °C. As 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Hot water inlet temperature (°°C)

Fig. 9. Effect of hot water inlet temperature on cooling capacity (Tchill,in = 15°C).
Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C
0,12
Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C
0,1 0,12

0,08
Cooling Capacity (kW)

0,1
COP (-)

0,06 0,08

0,04
0,06
0,02
0,04
0
7 7,5 8 8,5 9 9,5 10 0,02
Gas Cooler Pressure (MPa)
0
40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Fig. 6. Effect of desorption pressure on COP (Thot,in = 85 °C, Tchill,in = 15 °C).
Hot water inlet temperature (°°C)

Fig. 10. Effect of hot water inlet temperature on COP (Tchill,in = 15°C).
Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C
2
1,8 can be seen from this figure, the COP increases with the increase
Cooling Capacity (kW)

1,6 of adsorption/desorption time as the refrigerant mass desorbed is

1,4 higher.
1,2 Figs. 9 and 10 present the simulated performance in terms of
1 cooling power and COP of the Maxsorb III–CO2 adsorption chiller
0,8 versus the hot water inlet temperature. The values of COP and
0,6 cooling capacity at different hot water inlet temperature and for
0,4 cooling water inlet temperature of 27 °C are showed in Table 2. It
0,2 is found that the cooling capacity increases linearly with the in-
0 crease of hot water inlet temperature. This is due to the increase
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
of refrigerant amount being desorbed at higher regeneration tem-
Adsorption/Desorption time (min) peratures. For cooling water inlet temperature of 27, 32 and 37 °C
Fig. 7. Effect of adsorption/desorption time on cooling capacity (Thot,in = 85 °C, and optimal desorption pressure, the adsorption chiller is able to
Tchill,in = 15 °C). produce 1.85, 1.28 and 0.8 kW of cooling power, respectively at
990 S. Jribi et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 985–991

Table 2
Cooling capacity and COP for different hot water inlet temperatures (Tcool,in = 27 °C, Tchill,in = 15 °C, Pgc = 7.9 MPa and tads/des = 634 s).

Thin (°C) 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95
tcycle (s) 2280 2008 1819 1696 1609 1546 1496 1456 1423 1395
Qchill (kW) 0.28 0.50 0.73 0.95 1.16 1.37 1.55 1.72 1.85 1.95
COP 0.055 0.072 0.083 0.090 0.095 0.098 0.100 0.100 0.098 0.095

hot water inlet temperature of 90 °C, which could be obtained from Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C Heat of Vapor.
solar energy or waste heat and makes this chiller attractive for air- 2 250

Heat of Vaporisation (kJ/kg)

conditioning applications. However, the COP increases for hot 1,8

Cooling Capacity (kW)

water inlet temperatures up to 80 and 90 °C for cooling water inlet 1,6 200
temperature of 27 and 32 °C, respectively; and for higher heat 1,4
source temperatures, the COP exhibits a small decrease. This 1,2 150
means that the heat consumed to desorb the refrigerant from the 1
activated carbon becomes higher than the cooling effect generated. 0,8 100
The values of energies provided and received by the adsorption 0,6
chiller for Pdes = 7.9 MPa, Thot,in = 85 °C, Tchill,in = 15 °C and 0,4 50
Tcool,in = 27 °C are presented in Table 3. It is found that the 0,2 Critical point
difference between the energy received (Qchill + Qdes) and the 0 0
energy provided (Qcond + Qads) is only 1.87% which is acceptable 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32
and validate the energy balance equation. Chilled Water Inlet Temperature (°C)
The effect of chilled water inlet temperature on the CC of the
Fig. 11. Effect of chilled water inlet temperature on cooling capacity (Thot,in = 85°C).
Maxsorb III–CO2 based adsorption cooling cycle is presented in
Fig. 11. The CC attains its optimal values at chilled water inlet tem-
perature of 22, 24 and 24 °C, for cooling water inlet temperature of
Cooling temperature: 27°C 32°C 37°C
27, 32 and 37 °C, respectively and optimal desorption pressures. 0,12
The CC increases with the increase of chilled water inlet tempera-
tures as the amount of CO2 adsorbed in the activated carbon is 0,1
higher. Above the optimal chilled water inlet temperature, the CC
0,08
decreases; as the critical temperature of CO2 is equal to 31 °C,
COP

the latent heat of vaporization decreases drastically for evapora- 0,06

tion temperatures near to the critical temperature (the latent heat
of vaporization versus the evaporation temperature is shown in the 0,04
same figure); which results in low cooling power. This means that
0,02
the increase in mass adsorbed no longer compensates the decrease
in the latent heat of evaporation. 0
For Tdes = 85 °C, Tcond = Tads = 27 °C and Tevap = 2 °C, the COP and 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32
Carnot COP are equal to 0.088 and 1.78, respectively. Therefore, Chilled Water Inlet Temperature (°C)
the efficiency of the proposed AC-CO2 based adsorption cooling cy-
cle is 5% which is very low and this is the case for almost all sorp- Fig. 12. Effect of chilled water inlet temperature on COP (Thot,in = 85°C).

tion cooling cycles.

Fig. 12 presents the effect of chilled water inlet temperature on
the COP of the Maxsorb III–CO2 based adsorption cooling cycle. The m desorption
COP increases with the increase of chilled water inlet temperature m adsorption
and attains its maximum at chilled water inlet temperature of 14,
16 and 18 °C, for cooling water inlet temperature of 27, 32 and
37 °C, respectively and optimal desorption pressures. For higher
chilled water inlet temperatures, the COP exhibits a decrease
which means that the increase in cooling capacity no longer com-
pensates the increase of absorbed heat.
The simulations of the adsorbed and desorbed mass flow rates
for one cycle time of Maxsorb III/CO2 adsorption chiller are pre-
sented in Fig. 13. It is observed that the adsorption and desorption
flow rates increase sharply at the starting of adsorption and
desorption processes, respectively. The desorbed mass flow rates
presented higher fluctuation than the adsorbed mass flow rate;
this is due to the fast desorption rate of CO2 onto the activated car- Fig. 13. Adsorption and desorption mass flow rates for one cycle time
bon at high temperatures. The average values of the adsorbed and (Thot,in = 85 °C, Tchill,in = 15 °C, Tcool,in = 30 °C, Pdes = 7.9 MPa).

Table 3
Energy balance of the adsorption chiller.

Qchill = 1.72 kW Qdes = 17.19 kW Qcond = 2.70 kW Qads = 16.57 kW

Qchill + Qdes = 18.91 kW Qcond + Qads = 19.27 kW
Difference = 1.87%
 S. Jribi et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 78 (2014) 985–991
desorbed mass flow rate are found to be similar and equal to
14 g s1 which validate the mass balance equation of the mathe-
matical model.
6. Conclusions
The cyclic-steady state performance of the Maxsorb III–CO2
based adsorption chiller were presented for different heating, cool-
ing and chilled water inlet temperatures. For cooling water inlet
temperature of 27 °C, the optimal desorption pressure and the
optimal adsorption/desorption time are found to be 7.9 MPa and
575 s, respectively. With these conditions, the system is able to
produce 1.72 kW of cooling power at driving heat source tempera-
ture of 85 °C and with 80 kg of Maxsorb III. The maximum COP is
found to be 0.1 which is low comparing to commercialized adsorp-
tion chillers where the COP could attains 0.6. Therefore, further
optimization of the cycle such as heat and mass recovery is neces-
sary to improve its performances. The new thermal compression
air-conditioning system could be driven with solar energy or waste
heat and is suitable for residential, commercial and industrial air-
conditioning. Moreover, it can be powered by the waste heat from
the internal combustion engine which makes it suitable for auto-
mobile air conditioning applications.
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