DEVELOPING A SMALL-SIZE PROTOTYPE FOR ‎SOLAR COOLING WITH ABSORPTION CHILLERS

Mahmoud, R. K.; El Attar, M. Z.

doi:10.21608/mjae.2015.98733

DEVELOPING A SMALL-SIZE PROTOTYPE FOR ‎SOLAR COOLING WITH ABSORPTION CHILLERS

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

R. K. Mahmoud ¹
M. Z. El Attar ²

¹ Demonstrator, Ag. Eng. Dept., Col. Ag. Al-Azhar U., Assiut, Egypt.

² Lecturer, Ag. Eng. Dept., Col. Ag. Ain-Shams U., Egypt.

10.21608/mjae.2015.98733

Abstract

A mixture of absorbent “water” and refrigerant “ammonia” fluids concentrated at 50% was used as a working fluid. The power source was a solar flat plate collector FPC with gross area of 1.90 m². The FPC accumulates the collected solar energy in the generator vessel by the ammonia-water mixture. Two coaxial steel cylinders worked as condenser and evaporator. The outer cylinder circulates water to cool the system condenser in the condensing process. In the evaporating process (chilling), the outer cylinder is kept empty of water and the condenser cylinder works as evaporator. Experimental testing of the solar is assisted chiller was carried out for the evaluation of the system components and the overall thermal performance. Experiments were conducted in the Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Al-Azhar University, Assiut branch, Assiut governorates, Egypt. It was found that the maximum system COP was 0.12 (0.04 ton of refrigeration load). This system can be used to cool three kilograms of potatoes crop from 30 °C to 4 °C under the experiment conditions, and 18 kilograms of potatoes can be cooled to 20 °C under the same conditions. In the average performance, the generator FPC delivered a 14.3% of the total available solar energy in one day. Meanwhile, generator vessel delivers 98% of FPC thermal energy or 13% from the total, solar intensity to the condenser-evaporator set. Net energy of the system condenser reached 55% form the energy delivered form generator vessel, and equals to 4.43 % from the total solar intensity.

Keywords

References

Abdel Mawla H. A., A. M. El-Lithy, M. Z. Attar, and R. K. Mahmoud. 2012. Evaluation of flat-plate solar collector for agricultural applications. The 19th annual. Conf. of the Misr Soc. Agric. Eng.; Prospects of modern technology in agricultural engineering and management of environmental problems, (19):651-662.

Atanda, S., Pessu, P., Agoda, S., Isong, I., and Ikotun, I. 2011. The concepts and problems of post-harvest food losses in perishable crops. African Journal of Food Science, 5(11): 603–613.

Duffie, J. A., and Beckman, W. A. 1980. Solar engineering of thermal processes. NASA STI/Recon Technical Report A, 81: 16591.

Duffie, J. A., and Beckman, W. A. 2013. Solar engineering of thermal processes. John Wiley \& Sons.

Kalogirou, S. A. 2004. Solar thermal collectors and applications. Progress in energy and combustion science, 30(3): 231–295.

Kassem, A.; A.Shoker and A.Bassuony 1993, performance of an intermittent absorption solar refrigeration system. Misr J. Agric. Eng, 10 (2): 267-285.

Liberty, J., Okonkwo, W., and Echiegu, E. 2013. Evaporative Cooling: A Postharvest Technology for Fruits and Vegetables Preservation. International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, 4(8): 2257– 2266.

Lipinski, B., Hanson, C., Lomax, J., Kitinoja, L., Waite, R., and Searchinger, T. 2013. Reducing food loss and waste. World Resources Institute, Washington DC, Working Paper.

Owen, M. S., and Kennedy, H. E. 2009. Handbook: Fundamentals. American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

Wessel, D. 2001. Ashrae fundamentals handbook 2001 (SI edition). American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, 31.

Yusuf, B. L., and He, Y. 2013. Design, development and techniques for controlling grains post-harvest losses with metal silo for small and medium scale farmers. African Journal of Biotechnology, 10(65): 14552–14561.

Cengel, Y. 2007. Introduction to Thermodynamics and Heat Transfer+ EES Software (Vol. 77235657). McGraw Hill Higher Education, London, ISBN.

El Masry, O. A. 2002. Performance of waste heat absorption refrigeration system. 6 th Saudi Eng. Conf. 5: 531–544.

Incropera, F. P., Lavine, A. S., and DeWitt, D. P. 2011. Fundamentals of heat and mass transfer. John Wiley & Sons.

Kalogirou, S. 2008. Recent patents in absorption cooling systems. Recent Patents on Mechanical Engineering, 1(1): 58–64.

Mansoori, G. A., and Patel, V. 1979. choice of working fluids for solar absorption cooling systems. Solar Energy, 22(6): 483–491.

Mittal, V., Kasana, K., and Thakur, N. 2005. The study of solar absorption air-conditioning systems. Journal of Energy in Southern Africa, 16(4): 59–66.

Ursula, E. 2003. Solar technologies for buildings. Great Britain: Antony Rowe Ltd.

Wang, S. K. 2000. Handbook of air conditioning and refrigeration.:1.12-1.13.

Whitman, W. C., Johnson, W. M., and Tomczyk, J. A. 2005. Refrigeration & air conditioning technology (SEVENTH EDITIO N., pp. 1–1690). Cengage Learning.

Bakker-Arkema, F. W., Baerdemaeker, J. de, Amirante, P., Ruiz-Altisent, M., Studman, C., and others. 1999. CIGR handbook of agricultural engineering, Volume 4: Agro-processing engineering. American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE).(accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_refrigerator)