A comparison of the performances of adsorption and resorption refrigeration systems powered by the low grade heat

In order to study the refrigeration performances of the resorption refrigeration technology, the resorption working pair of BaCl2–MnCl2–NH3, which has the similar working requirements for the heat source and cooling source, and also could satisfy the similar refrigeration requirements with the adsorption working pair of CaCl2–NH3, is studied by simulation and experiments. In the simulation the mass transfer resistance is not considered for the systems, and the refrigeration performances related with heat transfer performances are studied, results show that the resorption refrigeration system has a higher refrigeration power and COP (coefficient of the refrigeration performance) because the refrigeration effect is generated by the reaction heat compared to the latent heat of evaporation. After the simulation the experimental test unit is constructed, and the experimental data are analyzed. Results show that the resorption rate is influenced by the critical mass transfer performance very much, and the refrigeration performance is lower than that of adsorption system. The resorption system also has the problem of the larger refrigeration power loss for the reason of the sensible heat requirement of low temperature adsorber. How to improve the mass transfer performance of resorption system and decrease the influence on the refrigeration power by the sensible heat requirement of low temperature adsorber will be the key research directions for the application of resorption refrigeration systems.