Solar Powered Solid Adsorption System for Cold-Storage Applications

This paper presents the prototype of a novel solar-powered adsorption chiller system for cold storage. Field tests carried out for several months showed that the prototype is able to store up to 1.7 MJ, with a solar Coefficient Of Performance (COPs) of about 0.1, which is in line with the current state-of-the-art in the field. The possibility to replace methanol with the less toxic and corrosive ethanol as working fluid was successfully demonstrated by ethanol adsorption measurements on activated carbon Chemviron SRD 1352-3 and subsequent thermodynamic modelling. The schematics of a second-generation prototype was proposed, with improved core-components design and control strategy, to guarantee a 30% size reduction and a 20% performance increase.