A. Prof. Khaled Harby Mohamed

Minia University, Egypt

Title: Performance evaluation and enhancement of a solar powered adsorption refrigeration system with new adsorbent material

Abstarct: Refrigeration and air conditioning demands are widely increasing because of the dramatically increase in population and industries. Conventional vapor compression refrigeration cycle (VCRS) is the mainly used cycle in these applications due to its high thermal performance. These cycles consume a significant amount of electric energy and therefore cause environmental impacts. In addition, the working principle of these cycles depends mainly on refrigerants such as CFCs and HCFCs which increase the depletion of ozone layer and increase the global worming potential. Solar adsorption cooling technology gained wide attention recently. These systems can be driven by low grade heat sources such renewable energy or waste heat and use environmentally friendly refrigerants such as water. Performance of these systems depends critically on the used adsorbent materials (pairs). The use of suitable characteristics of the adsorbent pair leads to design of a compact adsorbent heat exchanger and improve the overall performance. In this study, characteristics of new adsorbent pair (HFC-417A/AquaSorb 2000) have been investigated experimentally and theoretically. The experimental data of adsorption uptakes and kinetics have been fitted with different adsorption models. The maximum uptake amount was found to be 0.69 kg of HFC-417A per kg of AquaSorb 2000 and the average isosteric heat was found to vary from 190 to 225 kJkg-1. Performance of an innovated solar powered adsorption refrigeration system using the proposed HFC-417A/AquaSorb 2000 pair is investigated and enhanced. Different operating modes are investigated to increase the system performance and the results are compared with those of traditional two-bed system. Results showed that an increase in system performance is obtained. The proposed adsorbent material proven to be a promising adsorbent pair for adsorption cooling systems.