Abstract
To enhance performance of adsorption refrigerator which is driven by low temperature heat below 100 C further improvement of the adsorber is necessary. Here silica gel and water are used as adsorbing material and refrigerant respectively. The adsorption and desorption process of the silica gel layers packed in the stainless mesh cage formed around cooled or heated copper pipes of 19.05 mm diameter and 0.5m length are studied numerically and experimentally varying particle sizes 0.1 to 5mm and layer thickness between 5 to 20mm. The maximum adsorption difference is obtained for layer thickness 7mm and particle diameter 0.1mm numerically. With decreasing particle diameter, adsorption difference levels off at about 0.5mm. But in experiments 0.3mm particle, which is only available below 1mm diameter, shows far less adsorption. Particles larger than 1mm diameter are for drying use and smaller particles less than 1mm are for column chromatography use. The latter may have different adsorption characteristics.
