Adsorbents, Working Pairs and Coated Beds for Natural Refrigerants in Adsorption Chillers—State of the Art

Abstract

Adsorption refrigeration systems are promising, sustainable solutions for many cooling applications. The operating range and the performance of an adsorption cooling cycle are strongly dependent on the properties of adsorbents, adsorbates, and bed coatings. Therefore, further research and analysis may lead to improved performance of adsorption coolers. In this paper, studies on working pairs using natural refrigerants and the properties of adsorbent coatings were reviewed. The selected working pairs were then thermodynamically characterised and ranked in terms of refrigerant evaporation temperature values. This was found to be a key parameter affecting the applicability of a given adsorbent/adsorbate pair and the value of SCP (Specific Cooling Power), COP (Coefficient of Performance) parameters, which are now commonly used comparison criteria of adsorption chillers. In the analysis of the coating studies, the focus was on the effect of individual parameters on the performance of the cooling system and the effect of using coated beds compared to packed beds. It was found that a fundamental problem in comparing the performance of different cooling systems is the use of different operating conditions during the tests. Therefore, the analysis compares the performance of the systems along with the most important thermodynamic cycle parameters for the latest studies.