Journal of Energy in Southern Africa (Oct 2017)
The cooling effect by an adsorption-desorption refrigeration cycle
Abstract
An experiment has been carried out utilizing the activated carbon granules as an adsorbent indige-nously developed from coconut shell and carbon dioxide gas as an adsorbate in a small experimental chamber, specially designed for this purpose. Adsorption followed by removal of heat of adsorp-tion and subsequent desorption produces refrigera-tion. After a few cycles in the chamber, tempera-tures drop from 304 K to 282.5 K. Therefore, con-tinuous production of refrigeration could be achieved by a suitable mechanism. The paper describes the details of the design and fabrication of the experimental chamber, the experimental proce-dure and discusses the results obtained to assess its feasibility towards development of an alternative eco friendly refrigeration cycle for replacement of chlorofluorocarbons.