ABSTRAKT

A solar-driven adsorption ice-making system had been designed and developed and the experimental study of this ice-maker driven by the parabolic trough collector (PTC) was presented in this paper. The adsorption cooling system was aimed at producing ice up to 50 kg per day under the sufficient utilization of medium-temperature solar heat. The experimental system mainly consisted of 36 m² PTC and an adsorption ice-maker. For the adsorption ice-maker, the intermittent refrigeration cycle was employed which indicated that the decomposition reaction happened during the daytime based on the solar energy while the synthetic reaction happened during the night. A composite adsorbent in the amount of 30 kg (24 kg of CaCl₂ + 6 kg of activated carbon) and sufficient ammonia were used as the adsorbent-adsorbate pair in this ice-maker. The experimental performance had been investigated under different scenarios. The results showed that the highest value of system's COP was 0.21 while the solar COP reached 0.05 when the ice production, the desorption temperature, and condensing temperature were 30 kg, 90°C, and 30°C, respectively. Moreover, by either simple valve control method or the cooling water control method, this ice-making system can work as a simple and efficient energy storage system. The storage experimental performances shown in the present work confirmed the system feasibility and availability.