Ethanol/activated carbons working pair for adsorption cooling systems

Nowadays, adsorption cooling systems are considered an attractive technology suitable for various applications. The adsorption characteristics of the adsorbent/refrigerant pair are one of the most essential parameters that affect the system performance. With the aim to investigate the performance of ethanol/activated carbon working pair for a sorption refrigerator driven by low temperature (below 100°C) different carbonaceous materials have been tested in the present work. A full thermo-physical characterization, comprising nitrogen physisorption, adsorption equilibrium curves of ethanol and calorimetric measurements, was carried out to estimate the specific surface area, the adsorption capacity and the specific heat of the activated carbons, respectively. All experimental results reveal that the adsorption phenomenon is ensured by the characteristic micropore structure typical of activated carbons.