Design and Performance of an Innovative Four-Bed, Three-Stage Adsorption Cycle

The design of a four-bed three-stage adsorption cycle has been proposed to reduce the volume of the six-bed three-stage adsorption cycle. A simulation model for the proposed innovative cycle was developed to analyse the influence of cycle time on the system performance identifying the specific cooling power (<i>SCP</i>) and coefficient of performance (<i>COP</i>). A particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique was used to optimize the cycle time enabling us to maximize the <i>SCP</i>. PSO results showed that the optimal cycle time was decreased with heat source temperature and <i>SCP</i> value was proportional to heat source temperature. It was found that the proposed cycle could be driven by waste heat as low as 40 °C, along with coolant at 30 °C. Comparative study of optimized result indicated that the proposed cycle increased the performance significantly over a whole range of temperatures from 40 to 70 °C and reduced two adsorbent beds, compared to the six-bed three-stage cycle.