Experimental study on activated carbon–nitrogen pair in a prototype pressure swing adsorption refrigeration system

Pressure swing adsorption of nitrogen onto granular activated carbon in the single-bed adsorber–desorber chamber has been studied at six different pressures 6–18 kgf/cm2 to evaluate their performance as an alternative refrigeration technique. Refrigerating effect showed a linear rise with an increase in the operating pressure. However, the heat of adsorption and COP exhibited initial rise with the increasing operating pressure but decreased later after reaching a maximum value. The COP initially increases with operating pressures however, with the further rise of operating pressure it steadily decreased. The highest average refrigeration, maximum heat of adsorption and optimum coefficient of performance was evaluated to be 415.38 W at 18 kgf/cm2, 92756.35 J at 15 kgf/cm2 and 1.32 at 12 kgf/cm2, respectively. The system successfully produced chilled water at 1.7 °C from ambient water at 28.2 °C.