Modeling and Simulation of a Two-Stage Air Cooled Adsorption Chiller with Heat Recovery Part I: Physical and Mathematical Performance Model

In the proposed work, the MATLAB program was used to model and simulate the performance of the investigated two-stage adsorption chiller with and without heat recovery using an activated carbon/methanol pair. The simulated model results were then validated by the experimental results conducted by Millennium Industries. The model was based on 10th order differential equations; six of them were used to predict bed, evaporator and condenser temperatures while the other four equations were used to calculate the adsorption isotherm and adsorption kinetics. The detailed validation is stated in the next paragraphs; for example, it clearly notes that the simulation model results for the two-stage air cooled chiller are well compared with the experimental data in terms of cooling capacity (6.7 kW for the model compared with 6.14 kW from the experimental results at the same conditions). The Coefficient of Performance (COP) predicted by this simulation was 0.4, which is very close to that given by the Carnot cycle working at the same operating conditions. The model optimized the switching time, adsorption/desorption time and heat recovery time to maximize both cooling capacity and COP. The model optimized the adsorption/desorption cycle time (300 to 400 s), switching cycle time (50 s) and heat recovery cycle time (30 s). The temporal history of bed, evaporator and condenser temperatures is provided by this model for both heat recovery and without heat recovery chiller operation modes. The importance of this study is that it will be used as a basis for future series production.