Development of an advanced solar sorption refrigerator prototype

The present paper illustrates the entire procedure followed for the design of an advanced double bed adsorption refrigerator, for continuous cooling production, which can be easily integrated in a cold chain, driven by solar thermal collectors, for food preservation through freezing procedure. The initial part has been dedicated to the working pair analysis. Once that the refrigerant (i.e. ethanol) has been selected, a deep experimental campaign has been performed, in order to identify the most promising adsorbent materials from the thermodynamic point of view. Subsequently, an experimental analysis of the adsorber configurations has been carried out, in order to identify the most effective configuration, in terms of adsorbent material, grain size and geometry of the heat exchanger. Finally, starting from the above reported activity, a lab scale prototype (1 kW of nominal cooling power) has been designed and realized at the CNR ITAE lab. First experimental tests have been performed, in order to analyse the achievable performance, in terms of specific cooling power, SCP, and thermal COP.