Making adsorptive chillers more fast and efficient: The effect of bi-dispersed adsorbent bed

• Published in: Applied thermal engineering 2016-08, Vol.106, p.254-256
• Main Authors: Girnik, Ilya S., Aristov, Yuri I.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adsorptive chiller; Bi-dispersed adsorbent bed; COP; Dynamics optimization; Heat transfer; Specific power
• ISSN: 1359-4311
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.06.016

[Display omitted] •The effect of bi-dispersed adsorbent bed on the adsorption dynamics is studied.•The mixing of fine and coarse grains increases both the adsorption uptake and rate.•This paper gives a scale of these enhancements. An intensification of heat and mass transfer in adsorption chillers (ACs) would make this technology competitive with common compression machines. The aim of this work is to study the effect of bi-dispersed adsorbent bed on the dynamics of water vapour isobaric ad/desorption under typical AC conditions. We prepared a flat bed of an adsorbent AQSOA™-FAM-Z02 consisting of two quasi-monodispersed fractions, namely, coarse grains of 0.8–0.9mm size and fine grains of 0.20–0.25mm size. The main findings to be reported and discussed herein are: (a) the addition of the fine grains perceptibly increases both the adsorption uptake and rate related to the unit volume of the adsorbent bed; (b) the uptake increases by 21% that may lead to larger COP-values; (c) the initial adsorption rate enhances by a factor of 1.44 after the addition of the smallest fraction of fine grains (2.5mass%) and of 1.89 for complete filling of the bed with the fine grains. Thus, this simple approach allows higher values of the COP, volumetric heat storage capacity, and specific power to be achieved. The paper gives a scale of this enhancement.