Recent Developments in Coating Technologies for Adsorption Heat Pumps: A Review

The use of adsorbent heat pumps as heating and cooling systems is particularly relevant thanks to their ability to exploit low-grade heat (e.g., below 90 degrees C) from renewable energy sources and waste energy streams with prospective applications in several fields, e.g., industrial and residential. Their development began in the 20th century and is still in full evolution. The great interest in their improvement and optimization was determined by some key factors inherent to their sustainability compared to traditional refrigeration systems (e.g., low electricity consumption and the low environmental impact of the employed refrigerants). Recently, strong efforts have been dedicated to increasing the achievable heating/cooling power density of this technology through the development of innovative adsorbent coating technologies. Indeed, the deposition of thin coatings on the surface of the heat exchanger could reduce the heat transfer resistance existing on the adsorbent material side, thus increasing the overall adsorption dynamics. Three main approaches have been assessed, namely a thick consolidated bed, binder-based composite coatings and in situ directly crystallization coatings. This paper provides a brief overview of some of the main achievements related to adsorbent coating technology developments for adsorption heat pump applications.