Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341

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Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Development of a continuously operating solar-driven adsorption cooling system:

Thermodynamic analysis and parametric study
H.Z. Hassan a, b, *, A.A. Mohamad c, a, H.A. Al-Ansary d
a
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
b
Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt
c
College of Engineering, Alfaisal University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
d
Mechanical Engineering Department, The College of Engineering, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A novel solar-driven adsorption cooling system that is able to produce cold continuously along the 24-h
Received 8 February 2012 of the day is proposed in this study. The working principle of the proposed system is based on the
Accepted 18 April 2012 constant temperature adsorption cooling cycle which is introduced also in this work. Both of the cooling
Available online 25 April 2012
system principle of operation and the cycle description are explained in details. Moreover, complete
thermodynamic analysis is performed for all components of the system as well as processes of the
Keywords:
theoretical cycle. Activated carbon-methanol is used as the working pair in the case studied. Further-
Solar energy
more, a parametric study of the influence of many system parameters on the performance is accom-
Refrigeration
Adsorption cycle
plished and discussed as well.
Thermodynamic model
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Sensitivity analysis

1. Introduction Cooling, refrigeration, and air conditioning processes mainly

Energy is considered the continuous driving power for
economic growth and the major requirement for technological
developments. The increasing rate of population, industry, and the
per capita energy consumption are the major forces that cause the
increase in energy demand during the coming years. However,
the conventional energy types are neither reliable nor sustainable
and the world’s reserves of oil are not large enough to be
dependable in the near future. As a consequence, securing
sustainable and renewable resources of energy with reasonable
costs and without adverse impacts on our environment are the
challenge. From this point, solar energy comes at the top of the list
due to its abundance and more equal distribution in nature than
other types of renewable energy. There are currently several rapid
expanding technologies that are used to harness the sun’s power.
These include power generation, solar water heating and desali-
nation, cooking and food drying, space heating, cooling and
refrigeration, and others.
* Corresponding author. Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Schulich
School of Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary,
Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4.
E-mail addresses: hzhahmed@ucalgary.ca, hassan_zohair@zu.edu.eg
(H.Z. Hassan), mohamad@ucalgary.ca (A.A. Mohamad), hansary@ksu.edu.sa
(H.A. Al-Ansary).
contribute in a considerable number of fields of human life.
However, the traditional vapor compression machines are domi-
nating electricity consumers and their operation and propagation
cause high electricity peak loads during the summer, especially in
those countries with tropical climate. The energy consumption for
air conditioning systems has recently been estimated to be 45% of
the whole households and commercial buildings, Choudhury et al.
[1]. That is besides, the conventional vapor compression systems use
non-natural refrigerants that have high global warming as well as
ozone layer depletion potentials due to the fluorocarbons. Conse-
quently, Providing cooling by utilizing a green energy such as solar
energy is the key solution to both energy and pollution problems.
The Mediterranean countries may save 40e50% of their energy used
for air conditioning by implementing solar-driven air conditioning
systems, Balaras et al. [2] and Abu Hamdeh and Al-Muhtaseb [3].
The development of solar refrigeration technologies became the
worldwide focal point for concern because the peaks of require-
ments in cold coincide most of the time with the availability of the
solar radiation. One of these mature technologies is the solar
powered adsorption refrigeration technology which is proven to be
suitable and applicable for refrigeration as well as air conditioning
applications. The refrigerants used in these systems are environ-
mentally benign, natural refrigerants and are free from CFC.
Therefore, these systems have zero ozone depleting as well as

1359-4311/$ e see front matter
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2012.04.040
 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341 333

Nomenclature r Density, [kgm
3].

q Adsorbate volume fraction, [
].
C Specific heat, [Jkg
1K
1]
Cp Specific heat at constant pressure, [Jkg
1K
1] Subscripts
Cy Specific heat at constant volume, [Jkg
1K
1] g Gas or vapor phase.
X Concentration ratio, [
] hp Heat pump.
m_ Mass flow rate, [kgs
1] a Adsorbed phase.
COP Coefficient of performance, [
] amb Ambient.
h Enthalpy, [Jkg
1] b Bed.
L Latent heat, [Jkg
1] con Condenser.
m Mass, [kg] ev Evaporator.
P Pressure, [Pa] f Fusion.
Q Heat energy, [J] max Maximum.
R Gas constant, [Jkg
1K
1] mc Metallic shell.
T Temperature, [K] min Minimum.
V Volume, [m3] pm Porous media.
y Wetness fraction, [
] R Refrigeration.
s Saturation.
Greek letters sh Heat of adsorption/desorption.
˛ Porosity of the solid adsorbent medium, [-]. w Water.

a zero global warming potentials. The most widely used working during the day time, when the ambient temperature is high, as well
pairs in the adsorption cooling systems include activated carbon- as at the night periods. According to our best knowledge, there is no
methanol [4], activated carbon fibers-methanol [5], activated study in the literature that explains the possibility of cold
carbon-ethanol [6], activated carbon-ammonia [7], silica gel-water production using a continuous operation solar-driven adsorption
[8], and zeolite-water [9]. cooling system along the whole day. As a consequence, we intro-
The basic one-bed adsorption cooling system is intermittent in duce in the present study a novel and a simple solar-driven
operation and has a low performance. Extensive researches have adsorption cooling system that is able to produce cold during the
been introduced in order to obtain a continuous operation and whole 24 h of the day.
a better performance of the system by using the multi-bed tech-
nology. These advanced multi-bed systems include many operation
2. The system and cycle description
schemes like the internal vapor mass recovery cycle [10e12], heat
recovery regeneration cycle [13e19], thermal wave heat regener-
The proposed solar powered adsorption cooling system for
ation cycle [20e24], convective thermal wave cycle [25e28], the
cascaded cycle [29e33], and the multi-stage systems [34e37]. continuous cold production is shown schematically in Fig. 1. This
system is composed of four heat exchangers; two adsorption
However, these advanced multi-bed schemes require a continuous
supply of driving heat to produce a continuous operation. There- reactors RI and RII, a condenser, and an evaporator. That is besides
a refrigerant storage container, two gas regulators connected to the
fore, the use of solar energy, which is intermittent by nature, as
a power source for driving the adsorption cooling system results in evaporator (1E, 2E), two one-way valves connected to the
an intermittent operation even if a multi-bed scheme is used. That condenser (1C, 2C), and a throttling device between the refrigerant
is why solar powered adsorption refrigeration systems are still tank and the evaporator. The reactor contains a type of solid
using the basic single-bed scheme. In this case, the adsorption bed
is integrated with the solar collector and the system provides cold
only during the night period. Many researches have been intro-
duced, both theoretically and experimentally, to study the solar-
driven single-bed basic adsorption refrigeration system. A flat
plate solid-adsorption refrigeration ice maker has been built for
demonstration purposes using activated carbon/methanol pair, Li
et al. [38]. The adsorption solar refrigerator designed and con-
structed by Anyanwu and Ezekwe [39] has a flat plate type
collector/generator/adsorber of effective exposed area of 1.2 m2.
The experimental results for a silica gel/water tubular reactor
integrated with 2 m2 double glazed flat plate collector give a gross
solar cooling COP of 0.19, Hildbrand et al. [40]. Collector types
other than the conventional flat plate have been used with the
solar adsorption heat pumps. A compound parabolic concentrator
solar collector has been used, [41e43]. The performance of the solar
refrigerator is studied experimentally by many authors,
[39,44e46]. Moreover, theoretical and simulation work has been
extensively presented in literature, [4,7,47e50].
As discussed above, solar powered adsorption cooling systems
produce cold only at the period of night. However, most of air
conditioning, cooling, and refrigeration demands are needed Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the constant temperature adsorption cooling cycle.
334 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341
medium that has the affinity to physically adsorb and desorb the
refrigerant vapor. Fig. 2 shows the theoretical thermodynamic cycle
of both the basic single-bed system, cycle 12341, and that for the
proposed system, cycle 12351,on Clapeyron diagram. Moreover, the
different operations and time schedules of the introduced adsorp-
tion cooling cycle and the basic adsorption cooling cycle are shown
in Fig. 3.
A complete cycle of the proposed system is composed of two
half-cycle which are similar in operation, Fig. 3. Each half-cycle is
executed in a day period and consists of an isosteric preheating
pressurization followed by an isobaric desorption heating and then
by an isosteric cooling depressurization process for one reactor and
an isothermal adsorption and presurization process for the second
reactor. In the first half-cycle that takes place during the first day
(starting at sun rise and ends after 24 h), the reactor RI is fully
charged with the refrigerant and is separated from both the evap-
orator and the condenser, valves 1E and 1C are closed. Its state
remains at the ambient temperature Tamb and evaporator pressure
Pey, state (1). Whereas the reactor RII is connected to the evaporator
and acts as an adsorber, gas regulator 2E is opened. At this state,
state (5), the reactor RII is in a thermal equilibrium with the
surroundings and at the minimum pressure, Pmin. The adsorption
process continues while RII is at thermal equilibrium with the
ambient. The pressure in RII continues to elevates as its content of
adsorbate is increasing. This process continues till the end of the day
when the conditions in RII is at state (1) which is the reactor satu-
ration point. Reactor RI starts the preheating process at the sun rise
time by solar radiation. When its pressure reaches the condenser
pressure Pcon, valve 1C is opened to allow the desorbed refrigerant
to flow towards the condenser, state (2). During this isobaric heat-
ing phase, the temperature continues to increase, and the refrig-
erant content inside the reactor continues to decrease as more
adsorbate is being freed from the reactor. The desorbed refrigerant
gas from the reactor condenses in the condenser at the diurnal
outdoor temperature Tamb. This process continues till the bed rea-
ches the maximum allowable temperature Tmax or the incident solar
radiation is not enough to generate more adsorbate, state (3). At this
time valve 1C is closed and the reactor RI is allowed to cool down.
During the cooling of RI, its temperature and pressure are contin-
uously decreased till a thermodynamic equilibrium state between
the ambient and RI is reached at the end of the day, state (5). At this
Fig. 2. Clapeyron diagram for the constant temperature adsorption cooling/heat pump
cycle.
Fig. 3. Operation time schedule.
state, the pressure inside the reactor is at a minimum value Pmin
which is less than that of the evaporator and its temperature is the
same as the surroundings Tamb. After the completion of the first
half-cycle in the first day, the second half-cycle starts in the same
operation as the first but with exchanged processes on the reactors.
It should be stated that, the constant temperature adsorption
cooling cycle can be completely identified by the ambient
temperature Tamb, the required cold production temperature Tey,
and the maximum allowed temperature Tmax. By referring to the
basic Clapeyron diagram, Fig. 2, the evaporator pressure Pey is equal
to the refrigerant saturation pressure corresponding to Tey. The
condenser pressure Pcon also equals the refrigerant saturation
pressure corresponding to Tamb. State (1) is specified by Tamb and
Pey. State (2) and therefore the generation temperature Tgen are
specified by Pcon and the isoster line passing through state (1). State
(3) and consequently the low concentration line are limited by the
heat source available temperature Tmax. State (5) is bounded by the
ambient temperature and the low concentration lines.
It is important to mention that, there are some differences
between our introduced system and the basic system. First, our new
system provides cold continuously along the whole day, which is the
main purpose of this study, whereas the basic system is intermittent
and provides cold during the night periods only, Fig. 3. Second, the
evaporation/adsorption phase takes place at constant temperature
in our system while it occurs at constant pressure in the basic cycle,
Fig. 2. Third, in our constant temperature adsorption cooling scheme
a complete cycle is executed in two days whereas one day is
required to complete the basic adsorption refrigeration cycle.
It is well known that, any real system deviates to some extent
from the theoretical one depending on the idealizations made in
the theoretical system. For example, the performance of the actual
Otto cycle is not the same as that of the theoretical one. This is due
to the presence of friction and the absence of sufficient time for
establishment of the equilibrium conditions during the cycle. To
make an analytical study of a cycle feasible, it is important to keep
the complexities at a manageable level and utilize some idealiza-
tions and simplifications. In the present work, we have considered
that the refrigerant adsorption process, which is exothermic
process, takes place at a constant temperature. In reality, it is
difficult to have a heat rejection process that takes place at
 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341 335

a constant temperature. There should be a temperature gradient and,

between the adsorption bed and the surrounding atmosphere to
provide a driving potential for heat transfer process. However, the




idealization of the constant temperature adsorption process in the vX T Ps ðTÞ n
1
¼ DnX T ln (3)
presented theoretical thermodynamic cycle is not far from the real vP T P P
situation and can be approached to some extent due to some
reasons. First, the evaporation/adsorption process, 5e1, takes place
Eq. (1) can be rearranged for the pressure P as follows:
during a whole day which is enough time for the adsorption bed to
reject the generated isosteric heat to ambient slowly and across
 1
1 1 r ðTÞWo n
a small temperature difference. Second, the refrigerant vapor lnðPÞ ¼ lnðPs ðTÞÞ
ln a (4)
coming from the evaporator and moving towards the adsorption T D X
bed has the same low temperature as the evaporator. This helps in
internal cooling of the adsorption bed and reducing the amount of The process of adsorption is exothermic and is accompanied by
heat to be rejected to the ambient. Third, enhancing the heat the evolution of heat. Whereas, the process of desorption is endo-
transfer within the adsorption bed by using fins or any other thermic and accompanied by absorption of heat. The amount of
methods leads to reduction the accumulation of heat and acceler- heat required to adsorb or desorb a unit mass of the adsorbate is
ating the heat rejection process from the adsorption reactor and known as the latent heat, or isosteric heat, of adsorption/desorp-
therefore approaching the isothermal process. tion. The isosteric adsorption/desorption heat, qsh, is calculated
from the ClausiseClapeyron equation,

d
3. The adsorption equilibrium model qsh ¼ RT 2 ½lnðPÞX¼con (5)
dT
The adsorption characteristics of a certain pairs depend on the
From Eq. (4), the isosteric adsorption/desorption heat as
nature of the adsorbate, the nature of the adsorbent, the reactivity
a function of temperature and pressure can be expressed by;
of the surface, the surface area, and the temperature and pressure
of adsorption. When a solid surface is exposed to a gas, the mole-
 
cules of the gas strike the surface of the solid. Some of these striking
Ps ðTÞ 1
n
RT T ln
RT 2 d P d
molecules stick to the solid surface and become adsorbed, while qsh ¼ ½Ps ðTÞ
$ ½ra ðTÞ
some others rebound back. The rate of adsorption is large at the Ps ðTÞ dT nDra ðTÞ dT


beginning because the whole surface is bare. It continues to Ps ðTÞ
þ RT ln (6)
decrease as more and more of the solid surface becomes covered by P
the adsorbate molecules. However, the rate of desorption increases
because desorption takes place from the covered surface. The where R is the refrigerant gas constant.
equilibrium is reached when the rate of adsorption is equal to the
rate of desorption. At this point the gas-solid system is said to be in
adsorption dynamic equilibrium because the number of molecules 4. Thermodynamic analysis of the constant temperature
sticking to the surface is equal to the number of molecules adsorption cycle
rebounding from the surface. The condition of the adsorbate-
adsorbent system equilibrium in the adsorption reactor is bivar- During the following subsections, each process in the constant
iant and requires two variables to be specified, the adsorbate temperature adsorption cycle is analyzed. In our thermodynamic
concentration ratio X, the temperature T, or the pressure P. The analysis we assume that:
adsorption equilibrium can be represented as an adsorption
isotherm at constant temperature, the adsorption bar at constant 1. The refrigerant vapor behaves as a perfect gas and the refrig-
pressure, and the adsorption isostere for a constant equilibrium erant specific heats are constant.
adsorption, Bansal and Goyal [51]. 2. Heat losses from the bed during the heating processes is
One of the mostly used adsorption equilibrium models is the neglected
DubinineAstakhov (DeA) model. In this model, the adsorbate 3. During the isosteric heating/cooling processes, the compres-
concentration ratio X is related to the pressure and temperature by sion/expansion boundary work of the gas phase is very small
the following equation: and is therefore neglected.


  The adsorbed phase volume fraction q is defined as the adsor-

Ps ðTÞ n
X ¼ ra ðTÞWo Exp
D T ln (1) bate volume per unit volume of the solid adsorbent. If we consider
P an adsorption bed of volume Vb, the mass of the solid, gas, and
adsorbate phases can be given in terms of the bed porosity εb and
where Wo is the maximum adsorption capacity and D, n are the the adsorbate volume fraction q respectively, as follows:
DubinineAstakhov equation constants that depend on the
adsorbate-adsorbent pair, ra(T) and Ps(T) are the adsorbate density mpm ¼ rpm ð1
εb ÞVb
and saturated pressure corresponding to the bed temperature. mg ¼ rg ðεb
qÞVb (7)
By partial differentiation of Eq. (1) with respect to T and P, we ma ¼ ra qVb
get; The adsorbate concentration ratio X is the mass of the adsorbate





 phase per unit mass of the solid adsorbent porous media. From Eq.
vX X d Ps ðTÞ n
1 Ps ðTÞ
¼ ½ra ðTÞ
DnX T ln $ ln (4), we can express X as:
vT P ra ðTÞ dT P P
 ma r q
T d X ¼ ¼ a (8)
þ ½Ps ðTÞ ð2Þ mpm rpm 1
εb
Ps ðTÞ dT
336 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341

4.1. Process 1e2 4.3. Process 3e5

In this process, the adsorption bed is preheated at a constant During this cooling process, the adsorbate concentration is
maximum isosteric line, Xmax. The relation between the pressure constant at its minimum cyclic value, Xmin. Heat is transferred to the
and temperature along the path 1e2 is found from Eq. (7). The total ambient in a sensible form. The total lost heat energy from the bed
sensible heat input during this process, Q(1
2), is given by; during this stage is given by:

ð1
2Þ ð1
2Þ ð1
2Þ ð1
2Þ ð3
5Þ ð3
5Þ ð3
5Þ ð3
5Þ

Q ð1
2Þ ¼ Qmc þ Qpm þ Qa þ Qg (9) Q ð3
5Þ ¼ Qmc þ Qpm þ Qa þ Qg (20)

where;
ð1
2Þ ð1
2Þ ð1
2Þ ð1
2Þ
where Qmc , Qpm , Qa , Qg are the sensible heats of the
metallic shell, porous adsorbent medium, adsorbate, and the gas ZT3
ð3
5Þ
phase respectively. These are given by the following equations: Qmc ¼ mmc Cmc dT ¼ mmc Cmc ðT3
T5 Þ (21)
T5
ZT2
ð1
2Þ
Qmc ¼ mmc Cmc dT ¼ mmc Cmc ðT2
T1 Þ (10)
ZT3
T1 ð3
5Þ
Qpm ¼ mpm Cpm dT ¼ mpm Cpm ðT3
T5 Þ (22)
T5
ZT2
ð1
2Þ
Qpm ¼ mpm Cpm dT ¼ mpm Cpm ðT2
T1 Þ (11)
ZT3
T1 ð3
5Þ
Qa ¼ ma Ca dT ¼ Xmin mpm Ca ðT3
T5 Þ (23)
T5
ZT2
ð1
2Þ
Qa ¼ ma Ca dT ¼ Xmax mpm Ca ðT2
T1 Þ (12)
ZT3

T1 ð3
5Þ rpm Xmin ð1
εb Þ
Qg ¼ Cyg Vb rg εb
dT (24)
ra ðTÞ
T5
ZT2

ð1
2Þ r Xmax ð1
εb Þ
Qg ¼ Cyg Vb rg εb
pm dT (13) For the other constant pressure adsorption cycle, the same
ra ðTÞ
T1 equations apply however, state (5) is to be replaced with state
(4).
4.2. Process 2e3
4.4. Process 5e1
In this process, the adsorption reactor undergoes a constant
pressure desorption process. The total input heat Q(2
3) is the sum In this process, the bed is initially at a thermal equilibrium with
of the sensible heats and the total latent heat of desorption. This is the surroundings. The adsorption process that takes a whole day is
expressed as follows: very slow. Therefore, the corresponding adsorption heat is slowly
generated in the bed as well. As a consequence, the bed tempera-
ð2
3Þ ð2
3Þ ð2
3Þ ð2
3Þ ð2
3Þ
Q ð2
3Þ ¼ Qmc þ Qpm þ Qa þ Qg þ Qsh (14) ture remains the same as the ambient in this ideal cycle. The total
heat removed from the bed during this constant temperature
The sensible heats of the adsorption bed materials are computed
adsorption process is given by:
from;
ZT3 ð5
1Þ ð5
1Þ
ð2
3Þ Q ð5
1Þ ¼ Qg þ Qsh (25)
Qmc ¼ mmc Cmc dT ¼ mmc Cmc ðT3
T2 Þ (15)
T2 ð5
1Þ
where Qg is the resultant output heat of the internal heating
ZT3 due to gas isothermal compression and the effect of the bed cooling
ð2
3Þ
Qpm ¼ mpm Cpm dT ¼ mpm Cpm ðT3
T2 Þ (16) due to the incoming cold evaporator vapor. This is given by:
T2
ZP1

ð5
1Þ rpm Xð1
εb Þ
ZT3 ZT3 Qg ¼ Vb εb
dP
Cpg mpm ðT1
Tey Þ
ð2
3Þ
Qa ¼ ma Ca dT ¼ mpm Ca XdT (17) ra ðTÞ
P5
T2 T2
 ðXmax
Xmin Þ
ZT3
 (26)
ð2
3Þ rpm Xð1
εb Þ
Qg ¼ Cyg Vb rg εb
dT (18)
ra ðTÞ The internally generated heat of adsorption should be removed
T2
as well to keep the bed temperature at constant value. This heat is
The total heat of desorption is given by: calculated from;

ZT3
 ZP1

ð2
3Þ vX ð5
1Þ vX
Qsh ¼
mpm qsh dT (19) Qsh ¼ mpm qsh dP (27)
vT P¼Pcon vP T¼Tamb
T2 P5

where ½vX=vTP¼Pcon is found from Eq. (2). where ½vX=vPT¼Tamb is found from Eq. (3).
 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341 337

Table 1
Constants of the DubinineAstakhov (DeA) equation, Jing and Exell [52].

Charcoal Wo  103 D  105 n

207E4 0.36546 14.96202 1.34
Chinese LSZ30 0.405 31.972 1.26
LH 0.860 25.74 1.321
Thai MD6070 0.988 88.98 1.12

4.5. The condenser

Since the refrigerant vapor desorbed from the generator enters

the condenser as soon as it desorbs, the condenser heat is in form of
both sensible and latent heats. The total heat removed from the
condenser is given by:

ZT3

vX
Qcon ¼
Cpg mpm ðT
Tcon Þ dT
vT P¼Pcon
T2

þ mpm ðXmax
Xmin ÞLðTcon Þ (28)

Fig. 4. The cycle Pressure-temperature diagram.

4.6. The throttling process

For a steady cold production at the evaporator during the whole
day, the rate of ice production from the system in units of kg/hr, in
In the throttling process, the refrigerant conserves its total
case of Tev is less than or equal to 273 K, is given by:
enthalpy. Therefore, the wetness fraction y of the refrigerant after
the throttling process is given by: Qey =24
_ ice ¼
m (33)
Cw ðTw
273Þ þ Lf þ Cice ð273
Tey Þ
h ðTcon Þ
hl ðTey Þ
y ¼ 1
l (29)
LðTey Þ Where Tw is the initial water temperature and almost equals the
ambient temperature, and Cw, Cice, Lf are the water specific heat, the
The fraction of liquid that evaporates in this process, 1
y, causes ice specific heat, and the latent heat if ice fusion respectively.
a self cooling of the remaining liquid fraction, y, and consequently Similarly, the rate of chilled water production in units of kg/hr,
reduces its temperature from the condenser temperature to the in case of Tev is greater than 273 K, is given by:
evaporator temperature.
Qey =24
_w ¼
m (34)
4.7. The evaporator Cw ðTw
Tey Þ

In the evaporator, cold production takes place by evaporation of

the liquid refrigerant. The cooling effect in the evaporator is
calculated from; 5. The case study

Qey ¼ mpm yLðTey ÞðXmax
Xmin Þ (30) The case investigated in the present study is a single adsorption
bed that undergoes a complete constant temperature adsorption

4.8. The system performance

The efficiency of a cooling system is measured by the coefficient

of performance, COP, which is given by;

Qey
COPR ¼ (31)
Q 1
2 þ Q 2
3
The heating effect for the heat pump working with the constant
temperature adsorption cycle is calculated from;

Qhp ¼ Qcon þ Q 3
5 þ Q 5
1 (32)

Table 2
The simulated cycle baseline parameters.

Parameter Value Parameter Value

Tamb 300 K Tev 270 K
Tmax 393 K Vb 0.1 m3
rpm 2000 kg/m3 Cpm 711 J/kg K
rmc 8055 kg/m3 Cmc 480 J/kg K
Ca 2534 J/kg K Cpg 1820 J/kg K
Cvg 1560 J/kg K εb 0.7
Fig. 5. The cycle concentrationetemperature diagram.
338 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341

Fig. 6. The cycle volume fractionetemperature diagram. Fig. 8. Effect of the evaporation temperature on the cycle COPR.

refrigeration cycle. The cycle uses the activated carbon-methanol as
a working pair. The values of the constants Wo, D, and n in the
DubinineAstakhov equation, Eq. (1), for various types of the acti-
vated carbon as an adsorbent and methanol as an adsorbate are
given in Table 1. The Thai MD6070 carbon type is used in the
present simulation. The saturation properties of methanol have
been taken from its equation of state, [53]. The baseline parameters
of the simulated cycle are given in Table 2.
6. Results and discussions
Based on the introduced thermodynamic analysis in Sec.4 and
the case study described in Sec.5, a computer program is written to
simulate the suggested constant temperature adsorption cooling
system. Generally, it is found that the system attains a refrigeration
COP of 0.6 with a total refrigeration effect Qev, of 9.137 MJ and
a heating effect, Qhp, of 24.16 MJ during a half-cycle (24 h). This
corresponds to a total daily ice production of 20.16 kg and at
3  C
from a water at 28  C. This provides a continuous ice production
during the whole day at a rate of 0.84 kg of ice per hour. Moreover,
each 1 kg of the activated carbon produces a daily ice mass of
0.6417 kg at
3  C and 0.747 kg at 0  C.
Figs. 4 6 show the P
T, X
T, and q
T diagrams respectively of
the cycle as simulated by the model. It can be seen from Fig. 4 that,
the reactor starts the generation process at a temperature of 333 K.
The adsorption bed pressure varies from the high condenser
pressure, 18.661 kPa, to the evaporator pressure, 3.314 kPa, and
then to its minimum value at beginning of the adsorption process,
151 Pa. The adsorbate concentration ratio, as seen from Fig. 5, varies
between its maximum value of 0.292 kg/kg to its minimum value of
0.035 kg/kg during the cycle. The adsorbate volume fraction is
continuously varying throughout the cycle operation with a slight
changes during the isosteric processes, Fig. 6. It attains its
maximum value at the end of preheating, 0.122, and minimum
value at the end of isosteric cooling process, 0.0143. Fig. 7 shows
the distribution of the total heat input to the cycle among the
adsorption bed constituents. It is noticed that the largest part of the

Isosteric
desorption heat
Q = 75.1%
sh

Bed sensible
heating adsorbate
Q = 13.62% sensible
pm
heating cover
Q = 8.9% sensible gas phase
a
heating sensible
Q = 2.36% heating
mc
Q = 0.014%
g

Fig. 7. Distribution of the total input heat among the bed components. Fig. 9. Effect of the evaporation temperature on the refrigeration effect.
 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341
Fig. 10. Effect of the evaporation temperature on the pumped heat.
input heat is consumed in the isosteric heat during the desorption
process. Moreover, the refrigerant vapor sensible heat is found to be
very small and therefore, its effect can be neglected in the model.
The effects of the evaporation temperature on the cycle
performance in terms of the COPR, the refrigeration effect, and the
heat pumping effect are described in Figs. 8e10 respectively with
two types of charcoal. It is seen that the cycle that uses the MD6070
carbon type has a significantly higher performance in all conditions
compared to that uses the 207E4 type. The reason is the higher
adsorption capacity of the former type. It is also noticed that
increasing the evaporator temperature leads to an increase in the
cooling COPR which has almost a linear increasing trend. The same
result is deduced from Figs. 9 and 10 for the Qev and Qhp respec-
tively. However, the 207E4 charcoal types shows a higher
increasing rate than the other type.
To study the dependency of the cycle performance parameters
on the heat source temperature, the COPR, the refrigeration effect,
and the heat pumping effect are plotted against the maximum cycle
temperature Tmax in Figs. 11e13 respectively. From Fig. 11, we can
Fig. 11. The maximum temperature effect on the COPR.
339
Fig. 12. The maximum temperature effect on the cooling effect.
deduce that there is a certain maximum cycle temperature at which
the optimum COPR exists. Furthermore, the system performance
gets deteriorated at low temperatures. Whereas both the cooling
and heating capacities are improved by elevating the heat source
temperature, Figs. 12 and 13.
Increasing the ambient temperature results in decreasing in the
coefficient of performance, Fig. 14. The condenser pressure is
determined according to the saturation pressure that corresponds
the ambient temperature. Therefore, high Tamb means high Pcon and
therefore low maximum cycle concentration ratio and refrigeration
effect at the same limiting temperature Tmax. The lower cycle
pressure is mainly dependent on both Tamb and Tmax. Fig. 15 shows
the effect of variation of the ambient and the maximum tempera-
tures on the minimum cycle pressure. It can be seen that, increasing
the maximum cycle temperature results in a decrease in the
Fig. 13. The maximum temperature effect on the heating effect.
340 H.Z. Hassan et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 48 (2012) 332e341
Fig. 14. The influence of ambient temperature.
Fig. 15. The influence of Tamb and Tmax on Pmin.
minimum pressure whereas increasing the ambient temperature
results in an elevated trend of the cycle minimum pressure. In
addition, at high Tmax, the effect of Tamb becomes negligible and at
low Tamb, the effect of Tmax is not significant.
7. Conclusion
Refrigeration and air conditioning processes mainly contribute
in a considerable number of fields of human life. However, the
traditional vapor compression machines are dominating electricity
consumers and have bad impacts on our environment. The solar
cold production using adsorption technology is an attractive field of
study. In spite of the great number of studies that were presented in
this field, there is no study suggested a day and night cold
production system that is driven only by solar energy. At this
juncture, we proposed in this paper a solar powered adsorption
cooling system that is able to work and produce cold during the
24 h of the day. The introduced system operates under a constant
temperature adsorption cooling cycle. Both of the cooling system
operation and the cycle description are explained in details.
Moreover, a complete thermodynamic analysis is performed for all
components and processes of the system. Results from simulating
this cycle using activated carbon-methanol pair are conducted.
Furthermore, a parametric study of the proposed system perfor-
mance dependency on many parameters is accomplished and
studied as well.
Acknowledgements
This work is supported and funded by the Egyptian Ministry of
Research and Higher Education.
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