In this study, the ideal adsorption cycle behavior of eight activated carbon and refrigerant pairs is evaluated. The selected pairs are KOH6-PR/ethanol, WPT-AC/ethanol, Maxsorb-III/methanol, Maxsorb-III/CO2, Maxsorb-III/n-butane, Maxsorb-III/R-134a, SAC-2/R32 and Maxsorb-III/R507a. The following cooling performance parameters are evaluated for all pairs: specific cooling energy (SCE), concentration difference (ΔW) and coefficient of performance (COP) of ideal adsorption cooling and refrigeration cycles. The evaporator temperatures for the applications of adsorption cooling and refrigeration are selected as 7 and −5 °C, respectively. It is found that the Maxsorb-III/methanol pair has shown the highest specific cooling energy and coefficient of performance in a wide range of desorption temperatures; i.e., for the adsorption cooling cycle it has SCE and COP of 639.83 kJ/kg and 0.803, respectively, with desorption temperatures of 80 °C. The KOH6-PR/ethanol and the WPT-AC/ethanol pairs also give good performances comparable to that of the Maxsorb-III/methanol pair. However, the SAC-2/R32 pair possesses a higher concentration difference than the Maxsorb-III/methanol, KOH6-PR/ethanol and WPT-AC/ethanol pairs but shows a lower performance. This is due to the lower isosteric heat of adsorption of SAC-2/R32 compared to these pairs. It is found that Maxsorb-III/methanol, KOH6-PR/ethanol and WPT-AC/ethanol are the most promising pairs for application in designing adsorption cooling and refrigeration systems.
In this study, experimental apparatus of desiccant dehumidification was developed at lab-scale, using silica gel as a desiccant material. Experimental data were obtained at various ambient air conditions, while focusing the climatic conditions of Multan (Pakistan). A steady-state analysis approach for the desiccant dehumidification process was used, and thereby the slope of desiccant dehumidification line on psychrometric chart (ϕ*) was determined. It has been found that ϕ* = 0.22 in case of silica gel which is lower than the hydrophilic polymeric sorbent, i.e., ϕ* = 0.31. The study proposed two kinds of systems, i.e., (i) standalone desiccant air-conditioning (DAC) and (ii) Maisotsenko-cycle-assisted desiccant air-conditioning (M-DAC) systems. In addition, two kinds of desiccant material (i.e., silica gel and hydrophilic polymeric sorbent) were investigated from the thermodynamic point of view for both system types, using the experimental data and associated results. The study aimed to determine the optimum air-conditioning (AC) system type, as well as adsorbent material for building AC application. In this regard, perspectives of dehumidification capacity, cooling capacity, and thermal coefficient of performance (COP) are taken into consideration. According to the results, hydrophilic polymeric sorbent gave a higher performance, as compared to silica gel. In case of both systems, the performance was improved with the addition of Maisotsenko cycle evaporative cooling unit. The maximum thermal COP was achieved by using a polymer-based M-DAC system, i.e., 0.47 at 70 °C regeneration temperature.
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