Innovative Design and Performance of Three-Bed Two-Stage Adsorption Cycle under Optimized Cycle Time

Abstract

This paper presents an innovative design of a three-bed two-stage silica gel-water based adsorption cycle aiming to minimize the overall size of four-bed two-stage cycle. One heat exchanger bed was removed from former four-bed two-stage system and operational strategy was taken to increase the adsorption time compare to desorption time in the proposed design. A simulation model for the proposed cycle was developed in order to analyze the influence of cycle time on the performance of the system in terms of specific cooling power (SCP) and coefficient of performance (COP). The cycle time was optimized to obtain the maximum SCP for different heat source temperatures using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. Sensitivity analysis of the cycle time was conducted using contour plot of SCP and chilled water outlet temperature for driving heat source temperature at 55°C. Optimize results were compared with the results of four-bed two-stage cycle. It was found that the SCP was increased for the proposed cycle over the whole range of regeneration temperature. The proposed cycle seems advantageous from the economic viewpoint due to its improved performance and reduced volume.