Design and Optimization of Adsorption Systems for Automotive Climate Control

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

Key findings

• MIT Mechanical Engineering MSc thesis (Cody L. Jacobucci, June 2021, Device Research Lab, advisor Evelyn N. Wang); targets waste-heat-driven adsorption A/C for internal-combustion-engine vehicles.
• Working pair: AQSOA Z02 (a zeolite-type adsorbent) with water as refrigerant; adsorbent deposited on copper foam brazed to fins in a tube-and-fin adsorption bed architecture (porous, conductive scaffold).
• Driven by engine coolant waste heat at 90 °C for desorption; full-scale design produces 1.5 kW cooling power over a 400 s cycle, meeting Ford’s automotive A/C specifications.
• A 1:10 scale prototype delivers an average cooling power of 150 W (under fabrication at time of writing).
• New boiling-assisted channel templating (BACT) coating method improves vapor transport through coatings, reducing material waste and fabrication time; achieves a record specific cooling power of 1875 W/kg of Z02 for a 120 s cycle, projecting a system-level SCP of 375 W/kg of the whole adsorbent bed (vs 200 W/kg for the prior immersion-dried design).
• Model validated in a custom adsorption-bed simulator with good agreement for immersion-drying coatings; adsorption layer modeled and a COMSOL finite-element model used; multi-objective (Pareto) design framework balances cooling power, device mass, volume, and pumping power.
• Adsorbent material review covers metal-organic frameworks (MOFs, e.g. MIL-101, MOF-801) vs traditional zeolites and silica gel; isotherms compared for Z02, KMF-1, CAU-23, Co-CUK-1 at 20-40 °C; evaporation temperature 5.5 °C used in uptake-potential analysis.
• Framework also positioned for adjacent sorption applications: atmospheric water harvesting, direct air carbon capture, thermal energy storage.