STUDY ON AN ADSORPTION CHILLER EMPLOYING LITHIUM CHLORIDE IN SILICA GEL AND METHANOL: DESIGN AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

摘要

A novel composite adsorbent (employing Lithium Chloride in silica gel)-methanol adsorption chiller was proposed and manufactured. This chiller was filled by the new adsorption material which had been dealt with to avoid corrosion effect. As the methanol has a higher working pressure, the stability and the mass transfer of this chiller will be improved. Experimental study was presented in this paper and its performance was compared with the conventional silica gel-water chiller. The results showed that though the latent heat of methanol is only half than water, SCP (specific cooling power) of this novel chiller was improved by 15.2% when the temperatures of hot water inlet, cooling water inlet and chilled water outlet were 85°C, 30°C and 15°C. What's more, in this working condition, the average COP (coefficient of performance) was increased as much as 24%. In the prior research, the silica gel-water chiller was often working as air conditioning. In this paper, it was also tentatively operated below 0°C, which meant that this novel chiller could be used as refrigerator or ice-maker. But for this purpose, the construction of the next generation chiller needed improvement.