Evaluation of New Composite Adsorbents for Solar-Driven Adsorption Refrigerator

Abstract

Sustainability, nature conservation, and energy economy remain the significant points of the global community focus. Due to the rapid growth in the world wide consumption of limited conventional energy and the environmental consideration for refrigerant agents' choice, solar-driven adsorption refrigerators (SAR) have been the focal of extensive research for cooling and refrigeration applications subjected to meet the fast increase in refrigeration needs of the developing countries such as Egypt. A new two composite adsorbents consist of 95wt% silica gel powder with 5wt% activated carbon powder (SGC1) and 90wt% silica gel powder with 10wt% activated carbon powder (SGC2), used with water as a refrigerant agent in a solar adsorption refrigerator installed in Upper Egypt. These adsorbents were evaluated as eco-friendly and low-cost cooling storage for cooling fruits and vegetables within a convenient storage environment. The experiments were done under the weather conditions of Qena City in Upper Egypt. The main results showed that the best obtained coefficient of performance (COP) was about 0.174 for SGC1. The specific cooling power (SCP) value was about 0.0199 kW/kg for SGC1. Moreover, the delivered evaporator temperature by the adsorption refrigerator can reach about 2.8-1.6°C. These results revealed that the proposed new adsorbents are beneficial for storing vegetables and fruits in remote and rural areas where electrical power sources are insufficient or unavailable.