Solar driven cooling machines have been employed until recent years only in niche markets due to a series of reasons: dimensions of the machines, cooling power storage, production costs, and others. At present times there's a high request for a reliable technology developed for domestic applications at distributed level. The solar heating is a rapidly growing market and the available technologies are almost consolidated, but a strong limitation to the application of solar collectors is due to the waste heat available in summer periods, which limit the sizing of solar domestic installations, limit the capacity to provide not only support to hot sanitary water, but even to indoor space heating. The objective of the present work is to suggest a possible solution and try to give a contribution to the described problem. The R&D performed at FBK-REET labs has produced a new concept of solar driven cooling/heating machine based on a double adsorption/desorption cycle acting between two small tanks. The machine, working cyclically between desorption and adsorption, is provided of an heat storage to separate the cooling energy availability from the solar radiation. Thus the system is able to provide not only cooling power in hot periods, but even heating in colder times or for hot sanitary water production. The system may be scaled up or down in cooling capacity, sizing properly the porous adsorbing material volumes, and in cooling power, changing the air mass flow through the system. A prototype has been built, provided of a cooling capacity of about 25 kWhth and a cooling power retrofittable until a max of 4 kWth in the range of cold temperatures of about 8-12°C. The overall COP is in the range of 0,6-0,7. The system is patent pending (Publication number: WO2008099262).
A novel Retrofittable Solar Cooler/Heater based on Adsorption cycle for domestic application
Crema, Luigi;Bozzoli, Alessandro;Cicolini, Guido;Zanetti, Alberto
2009-01-01
Abstract
Solar driven cooling machines have been employed until recent years only in niche markets due to a series of reasons: dimensions of the machines, cooling power storage, production costs, and others. At present times there's a high request for a reliable technology developed for domestic applications at distributed level. The solar heating is a rapidly growing market and the available technologies are almost consolidated, but a strong limitation to the application of solar collectors is due to the waste heat available in summer periods, which limit the sizing of solar domestic installations, limit the capacity to provide not only support to hot sanitary water, but even to indoor space heating. The objective of the present work is to suggest a possible solution and try to give a contribution to the described problem. The R&D performed at FBK-REET labs has produced a new concept of solar driven cooling/heating machine based on a double adsorption/desorption cycle acting between two small tanks. The machine, working cyclically between desorption and adsorption, is provided of an heat storage to separate the cooling energy availability from the solar radiation. Thus the system is able to provide not only cooling power in hot periods, but even heating in colder times or for hot sanitary water production. The system may be scaled up or down in cooling capacity, sizing properly the porous adsorbing material volumes, and in cooling power, changing the air mass flow through the system. A prototype has been built, provided of a cooling capacity of about 25 kWhth and a cooling power retrofittable until a max of 4 kWth in the range of cold temperatures of about 8-12°C. The overall COP is in the range of 0,6-0,7. The system is patent pending (Publication number: WO2008099262).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
