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Efficient Carbon based Water Adsorbers for Sustainable Cooling
Energy efficiency of cooling and air conditioning are a significant future challenge. Activated Carbon xerogels are promising water adsorbers for sustainable cooling. The in-house developed next generation carbons will have to be upscaled, integrated in a heat exchanger prototype and fully tested.
Keywords: energy efficiency, activated carbon, water adsorption, materials science
The world-wide energy demand for cooling is steadily increasing, making the development of more energy efficient cooling devices a pressing issue. Promising candidates are waste-heat driven
adsorption/desorption heat pumps. In contrast to conventional heat pumps, where a mechanical
compressor transports the vapor from the cooling evaporation to the heating condensation chamber,
adsorption heat pumps use waste heat to make use of adsorption/desorption cycles of a refrigerant
(ideally water) in a porous sorbent for the pumping. The efficiency of such an adsorption/desorption
heat pump depends critically on the performance of the adsorber to adsorb large quantities of
refrigerant within a narrow temperature range characteristic for the type of waste heat used.
Laboratory scale test on porous activated carbon xerogel adsorber prototypes developed in our group
show very promising properties.
The next step in testing these materials is to produce larger amounts
of material and integrate them in a realistically sized test installation for further testing. An additional aim is to improve the prediction of the real performance based on previous lab-scale measurements. Here in-house developed simulation tools will be used to understand the materials properties and
extrapolate performance in heat pumps. This internship will be part of a larger project with several academic and industrial partners.
The world-wide energy demand for cooling is steadily increasing, making the development of more energy efficient cooling devices a pressing issue. Promising candidates are waste-heat driven adsorption/desorption heat pumps. In contrast to conventional heat pumps, where a mechanical compressor transports the vapor from the cooling evaporation to the heating condensation chamber, adsorption heat pumps use waste heat to make use of adsorption/desorption cycles of a refrigerant (ideally water) in a porous sorbent for the pumping. The efficiency of such an adsorption/desorption heat pump depends critically on the performance of the adsorber to adsorb large quantities of refrigerant within a narrow temperature range characteristic for the type of waste heat used. Laboratory scale test on porous activated carbon xerogel adsorber prototypes developed in our group show very promising properties.
The next step in testing these materials is to produce larger amounts of material and integrate them in a realistically sized test installation for further testing. An additional aim is to improve the prediction of the real performance based on previous lab-scale measurements. Here in-house developed simulation tools will be used to understand the materials properties and extrapolate performance in heat pumps. This internship will be part of a larger project with several academic and industrial partners.
The goals of this project are:
− Upscaling production of activated carbon xerogels.
− Integration of carbon sorbents in real scale heat pump.
− Comparison of measured and previously estimated performance of adsorber within heat
pump. Identification of factors leading to potential mismatch between measured and
predicted performance.
The goals of this project are: − Upscaling production of activated carbon xerogels. − Integration of carbon sorbents in real scale heat pump. − Comparison of measured and previously estimated performance of adsorber within heat pump. Identification of factors leading to potential mismatch between measured and predicted performance.
Dr. Sandra Galmarini, sandra.galmarini@empa.ch, Tel: +41 58 765 4066
Dr. Sandra Galmarini, sandra.galmarini@empa.ch, Tel: +41 58 765 4066