Development of a Compact Adsorption Heat Pump with High-Performance Adsorption Module

Abstract

Adsorption heat pump (AHP) system has a big advantage in generating cold heat energy below 283 K for air conditioning by utilizing low temperature thermal energy below 353 K which is enormously discharged into atmosphere as waste heat. However, AHP system has a critical problem of low heat output density per unit adsorber volume, and so a commercial AHP system is 4 times or over as big apparatus volume as an absorption heat pump. In this paper, we have proposed new high-performance plate fin-tube type module (FT module) for downsizing the AHP by improving heat and mass transfer in the adsorber. We have also carried out experimental study on cold heat output performance of the module with a lab-scale apparatus. It is found that the AHP system incorporated with the FT module could operate by using heat source of around 333 to 353 K, and the heat output increases with increasing regeneration temperature and velocity of heat exchanging fluid. It is also demonstrated that the AHP system with plate fin-tube type module achieves more than 1.3 times heat output performance per unit adsorber volume as much as that with the previous circular fin tube module (FST module).