Study on the heat transfer and sorption characteristics of a consolidated composite sorbent for solar-powered thermochemical cooling systems

In this paper, a new consolidated composite sorbent made from barium chloride and expanded graphite is presented for solar-powered thermochemical sorption cooling systems. A larger sorption capacity and volume cooling density can be obtained with chemisorption systems when compared with those based on physicosorption. The heat transfer and sorption characteristics of the composite sorbent were investigated. Experimental results showed that the chemical composite sorbent can effectively utilize solar energy or low-grade waste heat sources with temperature ranging from 75 to 90 °C, and it could incorporate 0.61 kg of ammonia per kg of the reactive salt. The temperature evolution in the reactor was strongly influenced by the physicochemical reaction, whereas the transient heat transfer properties in the reactive composite material were different during the decomposition and the synthesis phases owing to the variation of the ammonia content and solid configuration inside the metallic salt complex. The rate of conversion in the reactor was very sensitive to the working temperatures and pressures, and the COP (coefficient of performance) obtained with the consolidated composite sorbent varied between 0.50 and 0.53 when the evaporation temperature ranged from 0 to 15 °C at a generation temperature of 80 °C.