A resorption refrigerator driven by low grade thermal energy

A small refrigerator based on resorption technique, employed MnCl2 and NH4Cl as sorbent salts and ammonia as refrigerant, was presented for simultaneously cooling at 0–6 °C and freezing at −16 to −14.5 °C in this work. The cooling capacity of this device was investigated by measuring the mass amount of the ice generated during a certain period of 3 h operation, and the experiments were conducted at different ambient temperature ranging from 20 °C to 35 °C. The total cooling capacity was calculated 475 kJ per kg of NH4Cl salt, and the mean specific cooling power (SCP) was 43 W per kg of NH4Cl salt, the effective cooling production responsible for making ice accounted for 25–42% of the total cooling capacity depending on the different operating conditions studied in this work.

► A resorption refrigerator employing MnCl2–NH3 and NH4Cl–NH3 was designed and investigated.
► The experiments were operated under different ambient temperatures from 20 to 35 oC.
► The refrigerator provided simultaneously two cooling levels: at 0–6 °C and at −16 ∼ −14.5 °C.
► With 3 h operation the total cooling capacity was 475 kJ per kg of NH4Cl salt.
► The effective cooling production was 25–42% of the total cooling capacity.