Design Adsorption Refrigeration Cycle

Read from local Zotero full-text PDF (group 5183627 / Joule Heist).

Key findings

• BSc graduation project (Mohammad Abo Hlail and IzzAldeen Sabayha, supervisor Eng. Zuheir Wazwaz), Palestine Polytechnic University, Hebron, December 2019 / Jan 2020.
• Working pair: activated carbon (adsorbent) + methanol (refrigerant); design goal is a solar adsorption ice maker for off-grid rural areas without electricity, for food preservation and vaccine storage.
• Intermittent (single-bed) cycle: the adsorbent bed is integrated into a flat-plate solar collector; by day solar heat desorbs methanol which condenses in the condenser; by night the bed cools and re-adsorbs methanol returning from the evaporator, producing the cooling effect and ice.
• Four-phase cycle described: (1) heating + pressurization, (2) heating + desorption with condensation, (3) cooling + depressurization, (4) cooling + adsorption with evaporation (classic Clapeyron ln P vs -1/T cycle).
• Literature review notes early zeolite-water solar adsorption work (Tchernev, Pons and Guilleminot) achieving COP of only about 0.1; motivates activated-carbon/methanol choice.
• Design chapters cover full component sizing: adsorbent bed/collector, condenser (helical coil), storage tank, evaporator, and ice box, with thermal energy balances and stainless-steel vs copper tube selection; solar geometry computed for Palestine latitude including collector tilt angle β.
• Experimental section tested cooling/evaporator temperature response while charging methanol in 100-500 g increments at 2 pm, relating evaporator temperature to methanol mass added.