Adsorption refrigeration: A study of adsorption refrigeration tube

Adsorption refrigeration tube (ART) with its advantages of no moving parts, compact structure and being powered by low grade heat, has increasingly drawn attention in the areas of air conditioning and refrigeration. In the present research, a novel ART that can work independently is proposed, which comprises a generator, a condenser, an evaporator and a water jacket. Through system integration, a refrigeration module integrated with multiple ARTs can achieve considerable refrigeration capacity. The present research comprises study of adsorptive properties of adsorbents (activated carbon), dynamic modeling of the full adsorption refrigeration cycle and economic analysis of adsorption refrigeration devices on the basis of ARTs. In terms of dynamic modeling, a model that is able to consider local thermal non-equilibrium in an adsorbent bed and the transient pressure process at the beginning of an adsorption process is proposed. The proposed model is experimentally validated in terms of temperature, pressure and sorption amount development. Moreover, the mechanism for adsorbate centrifugal and centripetal migration is revealed by the established model.