Transient thermal study of an adsorption refrigerating machine

Adsorption refrigerators are a particular type of refrigerator in which compression is avoided, and in a sense replaced by adsorption. No mobile parts are needed; the energy input, instead of being mechanical, is thermal and is used to achieve desorption. Such machines have a cyclic operation, made of successive adsorption/evaporation and of desorption/condensation steps. The transient operation of adsorption refrigerators is a relatively recent subject of research. The modeling of the adsorber is the key point of such studies, because of the complex coupled heat and mass transfer phenomena that occur during the cycle. The present work therefore presents a study of an annular type adsorber which is intended to account for transient temperatures observed experimentally. The equipment in which the experiments were performed and which uses alcohol adsorption on activated carbon is briefly described, and its operating cycle described, along with typical experimental observations of pressure and temperature transients. A model of the adsorber unit is proposed which accounts for the coupling of adsorption and heat transfer, and describes mass-transfer in the annular adsorbent layer as a global diffusional mechanism with temperature dependent parameters. This model correctly predicts, qualitatively and semi-quantitatively, the observed trends of the temperature changes. Finally, various aspects of the performances are discussed.