Experimental adsorption equilibrium study and comparison of zeolite with water and ethanol for cooling systems

INTRODUCTION In the past few decades, adsorption processes have been used exclusively for gas separation and purification purposes. It is only recently that this phenomenon has been exploited to produce cooling and heating. As regulations aiming at phasing out the CFCs are being implemented, thermally driven sorp-tion refrigeration machines are emerging as an at-tractive alternative to electrical vapor compression machines that produce no harmful effect on the en-vironment since their w…

Experimental adsorption equilibrium study and comparison of zeolite with water and ethanol for cooling systems

Two adsorption refrigeration working pairs of zeolite with water and ethanol were studied and the parameters of Dubinin-Astakhov model were regressed using the experimental data of equilibrium. The coefficient of heterogeneity varied from 1.305 to 1.52 for the zeolite-water pair and from 1.73 to 2.128 for zeolite-ethanol pair. The maximum adsorption capacity varied from 0.315 to 0.34 for zeolite-water and 0.23 to 0.28 for zeolite-ethanol, respectively. The results showed that the zeolite-water pair is suitable for solar energy cooling not only because of the high latent heat of vaporization of water but also because of the better equilibrium performance. On the other hand, zeolite-ethanol gives a high adsorption capacity at high regeneration tem-perature, which means it can be used in heat engine systems like buses and cars.