Design improvements for a collector/generator/adsorber of a solid adsorption solar refrigerator

A study of the effects of different collector design parameters on the performances of a solar powered solid adsorption refrigerator is presented. The refrigerator uses activated carbon/methanol as the adsorbent/refrigerant pair. The study was undertaken using a computer simulation program developed from a transient analysis of the system. The parameters tested are the collector plate emissivity/absorptivity combination, adsorbent packing density, tube spacing, outer tube outside diameter, adsorbent thermal conductivity, heat transfer coefficient at adsorbent/tube interface, and adsorbent tube/collector plate materials combination. Two performance indicators namely, condensate yield and coefficient of performance (COP) were used in the study as figures of merit. A multiple regression technique was used to correlate the performance indicators with the collector parameters through a quadratic relation. Consequently an objective function, suitable for selecting optimal values of the parameters is defined, subject to specified constraints. Selecting the COP as the preferred indicator parameter, optimization was then carried out. Improvements in the ranges of 29–38% for COP and 26–35% for condensate yield were obtained with optimal choices of tube spacing, adsorbent packing density and collector plate/adsorbent tube material combinations.