Performance of a finned activated carbon cloth-ethanol adsorption chiller

Measurements of cooling power and heat demand are presented for an adsorption heat pump (AHP) that integrated a finned adsorbent heat exchanger and a solar collector. For this study the adsorbent heat exchanger was heated/cooled with fluid at near constant temperature. Results from a bench scale, large temperature jump (LTJ) test were scaled to predict the outcome of a larger experiment (adjusting for heat losses and additional heat capacities). The AHP's measured coefficients of performance were COP ∈ [0.119, 0.236] versus COP ∈ [0.233, 0.337] expected. The factor of discrepancy in specific cooling power (predicted cooling power divided by measured cooling power) is 1.1-2.0 versus a range of 2-6 suggested elsewhere. Although the scale-up procedure accounted for additional heat capacities, unwanted air ingress (even for mole fractions < 0.1%) might have substantially reduced adsorption/evaporation rates.