Enhancement of heat transfer in adsorption bed of vacuum-tube with fins

• Published in: Applied thermal engineering 2019-05, Vol.153, p.291-298
• Main Authors: Li, Y.X., Wang, L., Yuan, Z.X., Chen, Q.F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adsorption; Adsorption bed; Cooling; Cooling systems; Desorption; Fins; Heat transfer; Heating; Inserted fins; Optimization; Solar energy; Solar refrigeration; Weather; Zeolites
• ISSN: 1359-4311; 1873-5606
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.03.005

•Solar adsorption refrigeration system of the finned bed structure was tested.•Cycle time of the system was reduced largely as fins were applied.•COP and the SCP were improved as the fin number increased.•Especially the SCP was improved by 83.5% at the maximum.•More solar energy input was needed to the system with the finned structure. To improve the heat transfer in the adsorption bed that was applied in a solar adsorption cooling system, an experimental study was conducted on the finned adsorption bed with the SAPO-34 zeolite–water as the working pair. In windless and sunny weather conditions, the performance of the system was investigated for different cases of the fin number changing from 2 to 8, given a fixed fin height and fin thickness. The experimental results revealed that not only the cooling capacity, but also the coefficient of the performance (COP) as well as the specific cooling power (SCP) of the system, were improved obviously with the increment of the fin number. With the heat transfer enhancing effect of the inserted fins, the bed cooling time following the desorption process was greatly reduced. Although the solar energy input in the preheating and the desorption process was increased for the fin-enhancing cases, the comprehensive result of the cycle performance was revealed to be profitable.