Pergamon

Applied Thermal Engineering Vol. 18, Nos. 1-2, pp. 13-23, 1998

PII: S1359-4311(97)00038-0

((~) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain

1359-4311/98$19.00+ 0.00

EXPERIMENT REGENERATIVE SPIRAL PLATE

ON

A CONTINUOUS EXCHANGER

HEAT USING

ADSORPTION HEAT

REFRIGERATOR

AS ADSORBERS

R. Z. Wang, J. Y. Wu, Y. X. Xu, Y. Teng and W. Shi

Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China

(Received 18 April 1997)

Abstract--Spiral plate heat exchangers were proposed to be used as adsorbers, and a prototype heat regenerative adsorption refrigerator using the activated carbon-methanol pair was developed and tested. The adsorption system using 12 kg activated carbon has a cycle time of 40 rain., meanwhile 14 kg ice per day was made. (.() 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. Keywords--Adsorption refrigerator, heat regenerative, spiral plate heat exchanger, activated carbon, methanol.

INTRODUCTION Solid sorption refrigeration (or heat pump) has received much attention in recent years; various kinds of sorption refrigerators and heat pumps were developed, mostly of activated carbonmethanol, zeolite-water, CaC12-NH3, and hydride-hydrogen pairs. Intermittent type for solar energy applications [1], heat regenerative cycle [2] and cascade system [3] were developed. New thermodynamic cycles, such as thermal wave cycle [4] and convective thermal wave cycle [5], were proposed for possible 'future potentials. The renewed interest in the study of adsorption refrigeration is based upon the various advantages of the systems such as non-CFCs problems, cost-effective, simplicity in construction, no need for solution pumps and meanwhile they can be driven directly by low grade energy. For real application purposes, continuous heat regenerative adsorption cycle is usually taken, however the development of the adsorber is critical. A good design of the adsorber should have several advantages such as good heat transfer in adsorption bed (thus the adsorption/desorption time can be shortened, the system can be compact for a certain power), small mass of metal to ensure its cost-effectiveness. Several types of heat exchangers have been selected as adsorbers such as shell and tube heat exchanger [6], flat pipe heat exchanger [7], flat plate heat exchanger [8] and plate-fin heat exchanger [9]. Recently we developed a spiral plate heat exchanger for the adsorber and the experiments have shown good results.

D E S I G N OF AN A D S O R B E R The key point for the design of an adsorber is related to the heat and mass transfer in the adsorption bed. The thermal resistance of a desorption or an adsorption process occurs in: 1. 2. 3. 4. the the the the convective heat transfer between thermal fluid and metallic sealing wall; thermal conduction through the metallic sealing wall; contact resistance between the metallic sealing wall and the adsorbent; thermal conduction in the adsorbent bed.

The thermal resistance of item (1) can be reduced by increasing the flow speed of the thermal fluid, thus it plays a little role in the whole value. Item (2) can be neglected if the wall thickness is very low-as low as possible if the strength can be guaranteed. The main contributions to the total thermal resistance are items (3) and (4). Thus by improving thermal contact between the
13

14

R . Z . W a n g et al.

2 l

I
L

(2>'0'

Fig. 1. Shell and tube heat exchanger as an adsorber. I, thermal fluid in; 2, thermal fluid out; 3, connection to condenser; 4, fins; 5, coil tube; 6, connection to evaporator.

metallic sealing wall and the adsorbent, and by improving the thermal conductance of the adsorbent bed, the total heat transfer between the thermal fluid and the adsorbent can be improved. However, the mass transfer in an adsorbent bed should not be neglected, as the diffusion and permeation of adsorbate through an adsorption bed may go very slowly. Various types of heat exchangers have been used in adsorption systems, such as shell and tube heat exchanger [6], flat pipe heat exchanger [7], flat plate heat exchanger [8] and plate-fin heat exchanger [9]. Figures 1, 2 and 3 show the designs. Shell and tube type is simple in structure and cheap, which was widely used in air-conditioning engineering. Its main disadvantage as an adsorber is the large thermal resistance between

Fig. 2. Flat-pipe type adsorber. I, thermal fluid flow cbannel~ 2, adsorbent embedded.

Experiment on a continuous heat regenerative adsorption refrigerator

15

/J/
21

Fig. 3. Plate type adsorber (including plate-fin heat exchanger as an adsorber). 1, adsorbent embedded; 2, thermal fluid passage; 3 metallic sealing wall.

adsorbent and fins [6]; The flat-pipe type [7] seems to be effective in solving heat transfer problems, the pressure difference between the adsorbent bed and thermal fluid may bring good thermal contact between adsorbent and metallic wall, meanwhile the thermal conduction in the bed can also be improved, however specific manufacture techniques are needed, and a big temperature difference will occur along the bed, meanwhile the pressure drop of thermal fluid is very high [10]. Plate-type adsorber [8,9] could be a good solution to overcome the various thermal resistances, the mass production is also market ready, especially plate-fin heat exchanger, which is usually vacuum brazed and made of aluminum, can be a very good adsorber for refrigeration or heat pump applications. The reported cycle time for a heat regenerative silica gel-water heat pump is 12 minute's possible [9], however this type of adsorber is very expensive. An economic compromise between mass and heat transfer improvements inside the bed must be found, and an adsorber should be simple, efficient and cheap. We designed a spiral plate type adsorber for the purpose, as spiral plate heat exchanger is market ready and widely applied in

7 2 3 4

Fig. 4. Spiral plate type adsorber. I, spiral plate; 2, vapor outlet; 3, solid adsorbent; 4, fluid flow passage; 5, thermal fluid out; 6, thermal fluid in; 7, support rod.

16

R.Z. Wang et

al.

chemical engineering for its compactness and efficient in heat transfer. Figure 4 shows the structure o f the adsorber. SPIRAL PLATE ADSORBER The adsorber is constructed by two parallel stainless steel welded plate at the two ends, then turned in a spiral line, the bottom end is welded and sealed by a flat plate, while the upper end is faced to a flange to embed adsorbent. The support rod is useful during the spiral-turning process, the space between the turned spiral plate is thus used for adsorbent space. A normal spiral plate heat exchanger has two flow passages, used for heat exchange between fluid-1 and fluid-2; however for a spiral plate adsorber, only one passage is used for thermal fluid flow, the other side passage is sealed and used for the adsorbent bed, the upper plate flange supplies the flow channel for adsorption and desorption processes. As shown in Fig. 4, the heat transfer between the thermal fluid and the adsorbent bed is something like flat-pipe type and flat-plate type. Besides the advantages for flat-pipe and flatplate type adsorbers, the other main advantages of spiral plate type adsorber are: 1. compact size, small heat transfer temperature difference, possibility for more uniform temperature distribution, and ease to control the temperature field; 2. the support rods are used for manufacturing process, in real operation, they serve as fins to improve the thermal conduction in the adsorbent bed; 3. high heat transfer density; 4. the volume of the adsorbent bed will increase more slowly if compared with the plate area increase; 5. ease for manufacturing; 6. cheap to obtain and ready in market. Thus we ordered two spiral plate heat exchangers with little modifications. The spiral space for an adsorbent bed of 6 kg activated carbon is 18 mm, and the spiral plate area is 2 m 2. 20 stainless steel screen constructed tubes were inserted into the adsorbent bed for mass transfer improvement purpose. Fuller e t al. recently tried a theoretical model for a spiral plate adsorber, and modeled it for a thermal wave heat regenerative adsorption heat pump. G o o d results are shown [11]. Our work Cooling Water ThrottlingValve
{

Evaporator ) puanp Ice box

Condenser

Receiver

IZ~.

T Adsorber2 pmnp ]~

np

CoolingWater

t><l

I><1'

Fig. 5. Schematicof a prototype heat regenerativeadsorption refrigerator.

Experiment on a continuous heat ~Fegenerativeadsorption refrigerator

17

is the first try to use such kind of a d s o r b e r in a pro'totype adsorption system, which may bring some meaningful results.

ADSORPTION

S Y:ST E M

A prototype continuous heat regenerative adsorption refrigerator using activated carbonmethanol was devel.oped, an arrangement of a typical ,thermal wave type was previously tried, however no g o o d results ~ e r e found [12]. We have improved the adsorption system, in which the two adsorbers are independently operated for heating or cooling except the go-between heat recovery process. Figure 5 shows the whole unit and measuring sensors. The system has two adsorbers, one condenser and .one evapora~or, a receiver is installed for the observation of refrigerant flow in the system. An ice box is used in which salt-water heat transfer fluid takes heat to the evaporator. Figure 6 shows the arrangement o f temperature sensors in the spiral plate adsorbent bed (inserted in the middle of the bed height). The connections of the two adsorbers to the condenser and e v a p o r a t o r are by four vacuum valves, which keep one adsorber when regenerated being connected to the condenser and the other adsorber when cooled for adsorption connected to the evaporator. Heating to an adsorber is controlled by a computer, the measured data of every sensor is shown on the display of computer, which demonstrates the whole system (Screen 1), the temperature fields of adsorber-1 (Screen 2) and adsorber-2 (Screen 3), the temperature vs time curves of the adsorbent bed (average) and the thermal fluid flow in/out (Screen 4), and also the pressure versus time curves of adsorbers (Screen 5). The data acquisition system makes us possible to read all the data from the document data files.

EXPERIMENTS

Heat transfer of spiral plate adsorber

Heat transfer from thermal fluid to adsorption bed is critical for an adsorber, the performance of spiral plate adsorber can be tested from real operation. A typical run shown in Fig. 7, in which curve 1 and 2 represent thermal fluid inlet temperature and average bed temperature respectively. The experimental results indicate that the adsorption bed temperature follows the thermal fluid inlet temperature quite well. The experimental cycle time is 40 min, which includes heating, cooling and heat recovery processes.

Fig. 6. The arrangement of thermocouples in an adsorption bed. 1, thermal fluid in; 2, temperature sensors; 3, activated carbon; 4, thermal fluid out.

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R . Z . Wang et al.

120 100
v N ~ 80 60 40
.,.."

l-thermal fluid inlet temperature 2-average bed temperature

2/"

i " ""

Ni

20
0 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 Time (sec) 5000

Fig. 7. Adsorption bed temperature vs. thermal fluid inlet temperature for one adsorber.

Desorption speed of adsorption bed

The desorption speed of an adsorber can be estimated from the desorbed gas mass vs time curve. A typical experimental test is shown in Fig. 8. For the measurement, the throttling valve is closed, the desorbed methanol from one adsorber is condensed in the condenser, the condensed liquid is accumulated in the glass receiver in which the liquid quantity can be indicated. This measurement is performed after the full water in the ice box was iced. The desorption speed curve indicates that a desorption time of 15-20 min is expected for the real operation of the system, as the desorption occurs mainly in this period.

Cycle time
Cycle time for a real adsorption system depends on three processes: adsorption, heat recovery, and desorption. Figure 8 indicated the desorption speed, however adsorption speed is impossible to measure in this real system. In the air conditioning operation condition, it seems that adsorption goes more fast than desorption, however it will be different for refrigeration conditions especially for very low evaporation pressures. In the real operation, heat recovery process is about 3-5 rain, this time could be shorter if the thermal fluid lines had larger flow capacity.

300

~D o >

200

"~ 100
~D
A

400

800 Time (sec)

1200

Fig. 8. Desorption speed of an adsorber for a maximum desorption temperature of 110 C.

Experiment on a continuous heat regenerativeadsorption refrigerator

19

12 ,-', 8 1- for 40 minutes cycle time 2- for 60 minutes cycle time

"-'
ID

-4

....

i ....

~ ....

i ....

i ....

i ....

i ....

i ....

2000

4000

6000

8000

Time (see)
Fig. 9. Cooling effectwith differentcycle times. 1-cycletime for 40 min; 2-cycletime for 60 min. The optimized cycle time for refrigeration effect was tested, in which the ice box has no heat load. The salt-water coolant temperature was measured for three operation cycle time, 40 rain, 60 rain and 80 min. Figures 9 and 10 shows the cooling speed of the coolant. For each operation there is a temperature jump, which is caused by heat leakage and conducted heat from the coolant pump. In order to get maximum cooling speed, the coolant pump is shut-down during heat recovery process. For the same initial conditions and same operation time period, the last coolant temperature can be compared, as shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10, we can see 40 min cycle time is a little bit better than 60 min cycle time and much better than that of 80 min. This result could be also estimated from the measured rate of methanol desorption shown in Fig. 8. In real refrigeration operation, the cycle time 40 min was chosen.
Ice-making test

Two experimental conditions have been tested to make ice with the adsorption refrigerator. Test 1, After the adsorption refrigerator reached normal operation condition, 15.5 kg water with a temperature of 29.8 C was filled into the ice box, the experimental conditions are; adsorption temperature 25 C, condensing temperature 22 C, evaporation temperature -15 C,

12 .-. 8

"
\

1- for 40 minutes cycle time 2 - f o r 8 0 minutes cycle time

4 2
E 0

~4

1 ..

.i

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

i ....

0
Fig. 10. Cooling effect with

2000
different cycle

4000 6000 Time (sec)

times, l-cycle time for 40 min:

8000
2-cycle time for 80 min.

20

R . Z . Wang et al.

30 25 2O o ~" Q) E 5 0 -5 0 4000 8000 12000 16000

i---: " :'-~-'~-

. 1

1-ice b o x t e m p e r a t u r e 2-chilled s a l t - w a t e r t e m p e r a t u r e

t5 10

Time (sec)
Fig. 11. Refrigeration effect of the adsorption system for the first 5 h of test 1. 1, water temperature in the ice box, 2, coolant temperature.

desorption temperature 100 C. The first 5 h refrigeration effect can be shown in Fig. l l, in which curve I represents measured water temperature in the ice box, curve 2 represents the salt water (coolant) temperature. Figure 11 shows that it takes about 12000 s to start water-ice transformation, however a sub-cooling is needed to initiate this transformation. During the water-ice transformation period, both of the coolant and water temperature are nearly constant. The last 5 h for the operation is shown in Fig. 12, in which the stop point represents 24 h of re-

-2

stop o f o p e r a t i o n

ID

-4

ID

-6

1-ice box temperature 2-chilled s a l t - w a t e r t e m p e r a t u r e

-8

-10 0

....

, .... 4000

, .... ,,-, 8000 12000 T i m e (see)

, .... 16000

20000

Fig. 12. Re|Yigeration effect of the adsorption system for the last 5 h of test 1. 1, ice temperature, 2, coolant temperature.

Experiment on a continuous heat regenerative adsorption refrigerator

21

35 30 25
&

I-ice box temperature 2-ckilled salt-water temperature

20

15
~_ 10

2000

6000

10000

14000

18000

Time (sec)
Fig. 13. Refrigeration effect of the adsorption system for the first 5 h of test 2. 1, water temperature in the ice box, 2, coolant temperature.

frigeration, the remained water was weighted as 0.9 kg, thus the one day ice made by the machine is 14.6 kg, the ice has a temperature of -3.7 C. With a cycle time of 40 min and the above operation conditions, the measured desorbed methanol for the two beds is 500 ml. Test 2. The same operation test was performed but with different operation conditions. In this test, 14 kg water with a temperature of 29.8 C was filled into the ice box after the adsorption refrigerator reached the normal operation condition. The experimental conditions are: adsorption temperature 30 ~'C, condensing temperature 30 ~C, evaporation temperature -13.5 C, desorption temperature 101.5 C. The first 5 h and the last 2 h refrigeration effects are shown in Fig. 13 and Fig. 14 respectively. With a cycle time of 40 min and the above operation conditions, the measured desorbed methanol for the two beds is 420 ml. The measured remained water in the ice box at 24 h refrigeration was 0.75 kg, thus the 24 h refrigeration yields 13.25 kg ice.

DISCUSSIONS

The above experiments were taken in the prototype adsorption system, in which some improvements should be further made. The line diameter for the thermal fluid loop is critical for the speed of adsorption, desorption and heat recovery processes, the 0.4 in. line is a little bit smaller, if the diameter is larger than 0.6 in. the cycle time could be further shortened, especially the time for heat recovery process; The line diameter for methanol and the openness of connecting valves are also critical for adsorption and desorption speeds. A shell and tube type heat exchanger arranged horizontally was used as an evaporator, which serves as a flooded type evaporator, the diameter of the shell is 14 cm, if the full tubes heat exchanger were used for heat transfer between evaporating methanol in the shell and the coolant in the tubes, then a maximum temperature difference of 7 C would occur in the evaporating

22

R . Z . Wang et al.

-1

f
i i I i }

1-ice box temperature 2-chilled salt-water temperature

,D

-2 -3
-4

1/.
"..;-..,..

~
[--,

\
stop of operation
i i I i

-5

'

'

2000

4000 6000 Time (see)

8000

10000

Fig. 14. Refrigeration effect of the adsorption system for the last 2 h of test 2. l, ice temperature, 2, coolant temperature.

methanol for an evaporation temperature o f - 1 0 C, though it would not be so serious for airconditioning purpose. In the experiments only 1/3 heat transfer area was used (about 1/3 tubes immersed in liquid), thus ice-making was possible however it formed a bottle-neck for heat transfer, which made the evaporator not match the machine refrigeration power. The heat exchanger in the ice box is also critical for the ice making. We tried several types and sizes of heat exchangers such as coil-tube heat exchanger, and normal air-cooled condenser, big heat transfer area yielded great ice production. If it is compared with air conditioning (AC) operation condition, the refrigeration operation condition is more difficult to reach, not only caused by heat leaks but also caused by long adsorption time. In the AC conditions, adsorption is faster than desorption, but in the refrigeration conditions, adsorption is slower than desorption. Cycle time is important for an adsorption system, but it is usually contradicted to COP of the system. Adsorption refrigeration is a typical dynamic system, dynamic adsorption and desorption, the normal steady state evaluation of COP and specific power density might be far deviated from real operations. The design of an adsorber should consider the mass ratio between metal and adsorbent. In our system, the adsorber was taken from a standard used for heat transfer in chemical engineering, however its flange is specially made which is used for changing adsorbent. Each adsorber has a weight of 70 kg (mainly the two upper flanges) and only 6 kg activated carbon filled, large amount of sensible heat is wasted to heat the stainless steel chamber itself, which causes also a low COP value. The real machine does not need the flanges like this prototype system, which may show better performance results. The further work should consider the heat capacity influence on system performance [13], the spiral plate adsorber should be specifically manufactured. The recent work shows the adsorption refrigerator can make ice more than 1 kg per day per kg activated carbon. However, if the previously mentioned improvements are done well, it would be expected to have a specific ice making power density of 2-4 kg ice per day per kg activated carbon.

Experiment on a continuous heat regenerative adsorption refrigerator RESULTS

23

The previous studies show the following. 1. Spiral plate heat exchanger is suitable for adsorption refrigeration system to be used as an adsorber. The good heat transfer properties ensure short cycle time for adsorption systems, now it is verified that a 40 min cycle time is possible. 2. The constructed adsorption refrigerator using activated carbon-methanol can make ice properly. The experimental results show the system can make more than 1 kg ice per kg adsorbent one day. The expected ice making power density will be 2-4 kg ice per kg adsorbent one day after the further improvement.

Acknowledgements--This work was supported by Shanghai Science Star Program. The authors also thank the Shuguang Training Program of Shanghai Education Commission, the Trans-Century Training Program Foundation for the Talents of SEDC and the Education Foundation of Y. D. Hou.
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