Performance improvement and comparison of mass recovery in CaCl2/activated carbon adsorption refrigerator and silica gel/LiCl adsorption chiller driven by low grade waste heat

One CaCl2/activated carbon-ammonia adsorption refrigerator and one silica gel/LiCl-methanol chiller was designed and tested. The comparison of performance improvement of mass recovery process on the two adsorption systems was studied. The results show that the COP (coefficient of performance) and SCP (specific of cooling power) can be improved by 15.4% and 10.5% by mass recovery process in silica gel/LiCl-methanol chiller, while they can be improved by 53.8% and 51.5% in CaCl2/acitvated carbon-ammonia refrigerator, because the latter has larger pressure difference between the hot and cold bed. Both the CaCl2/acitvated carbon-ammonia refrigerator and the silica gel/LiCl-methanol chiller can provide continuous and stable cooling capacity. Under nominal working condition, the evaporator temperature, COP and SCP can reach −21 °C, 0.26 and 474 W kg−1 in CaCl2/activated carbon-ammonia refrigerator, and they are 15 °C, 0.41 and 244 W kg−1 in the silica gel/LiCl-methanol chiller.