Characterization of adsorbent/refrigerant pairs for developing high performance adsorption cooling systems

This paper presents an experimental investigation of adsorption isotherms and kinetics of promising adsorbent/refrigerant pairs towards the performance improvement of adsorption cooling systems. Adsorbents used in the present study are (i) parent Maxsorb III, (ii) KOH-H2 treated Maxsorb III, and (iii) a metal organic framework (MOF) material namely, MIL-101Cr. Adsorption isotherms and kinetics of the assorted pairs have been measured using magnetic suspension adsorption measurement unit (MSB-VG-S2). Experiments have been conducted across assorted adsorption temperatures that are useful for the operation of adsorption chillers. The Dubinin-Astakhov equation is used to fit adsorption isotherms whilst adsorption kinetics is presented by the Fickian diffusion model. Experimental results show that, among the assorted pairs, parent Maxsorb III/ethanol pair has the highest adsorption equilibrium uptake. However, the diffusional time constant of MIL-101Cr is found to be higher than that of other studied pairs.