Chapter 10
Thermodynamic Analysis of Activated
Carbon–Ethanol and Zeolite–Water
Based Adsorption Cooling Systems
Satish Sangwan and Prodyut R. Chakraborty
Abstract The present study focuses on the thermodynamic analysis of zeolite–water
and activated carbon–ethanol based adsorption cooling systems. The performance
of the system depends critically on four operating temperatures namely maximum
desorption temperature, minimum adsorption temperature, condensing temperature,
and evaporating temperature and also on the ratio of specific heat of structural material
and the specific heat of adsorbent. Dubinin–Astakhov equation is used to estimate
the equilibrium uptake of working pairs. A comparative study is made between these
working pairs for the air-conditioning applications.
Keywords Adsorption · Zeolite · Activated carbon · Ethanol
10.1 Introduction
The world is getting warmer, the average global temperature of earth has increased
by 0.8
◦ C since 1880 and most of this increase occurred since 1975 (Hansen et al.
2010). Due to this increase in average temperature, demand of refrigeration and
air-conditioning is increasing continuously. It is approximated by the international
Institute of Refrigeration in Paris that 15% of the total electricity production across
the world is used for cooling applications and it is also estimated that the 45% of
the total households and commercial buildings energy consumption is consumed
for air-conditioning applications (Choudhury et al. 2013). Traditional methods of
cooling uses CFC, HCFC and HFC as a refrigerant which are the major cause of
ozone layer depletion and global warming. So the demand of environment friendly
refrigeration and air-conditioning technologies is under continuous research focus.
One more problem with the traditional refrigeration systems is energy consumption.
Conventional vapor compression cooling systems uses electricity as source of energy.
The energy efficiency of electricity production is about 40–50%, so most of the
energy is released in atmosphere as waste heat at a temperature of 70–200 °C (Wang
S. Sangwan · P. R. Chakraborty (B)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur
342037, Rajasthan, India
e-mail: pchakraborty@iitj.ac.in
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
H. Tyagi et al. (eds.), Solar Energy, Energy, Environment,
and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0675-8_10
179
Thermodynamic Analysis of Activated
Carbon–Ethanol and Zeolite–Water
Based Adsorption Cooling Systems
Satish Sangwan and Prodyut R. Chakraborty
Abstract The present study focuses on the thermodynamic analysis of zeolite–water
and activated carbon–ethanol based adsorption cooling systems. The performance
of the system depends critically on four operating temperatures namely maximum
desorption temperature, minimum adsorption temperature, condensing temperature,
and evaporating temperature and also on the ratio of specific heat of structural material
and the specific heat of adsorbent. Dubinin–Astakhov equation is used to estimate
the equilibrium uptake of working pairs. A comparative study is made between these
working pairs for the air-conditioning applications.
Keywords Adsorption · Zeolite · Activated carbon · Ethanol
10.1 Introduction
The world is getting warmer, the average global temperature of earth has increased
by 0.8
◦ C since 1880 and most of this increase occurred since 1975 (Hansen et al.
2010). Due to this increase in average temperature, demand of refrigeration and
air-conditioning is increasing continuously. It is approximated by the international
Institute of Refrigeration in Paris that 15% of the total electricity production across
the world is used for cooling applications and it is also estimated that the 45% of
the total households and commercial buildings energy consumption is consumed
for air-conditioning applications (Choudhury et al. 2013). Traditional methods of
cooling uses CFC, HCFC and HFC as a refrigerant which are the major cause of
ozone layer depletion and global warming. So the demand of environment friendly
refrigeration and air-conditioning technologies is under continuous research focus.
One more problem with the traditional refrigeration systems is energy consumption.
Conventional vapor compression cooling systems uses electricity as source of energy.
The energy efficiency of electricity production is about 40–50%, so most of the
energy is released in atmosphere as waste heat at a temperature of 70–200 °C (Wang
S. Sangwan · P. R. Chakraborty (B)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur
342037, Rajasthan, India
e-mail: pchakraborty@iitj.ac.in
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020
H. Tyagi et al. (eds.), Solar Energy, Energy, Environment,
and Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0675-8_10
179