Adsorption Chillers - Technology
New possibilities opened by adsorption solutions
Adsorption chillers are powered by hot water instead of electric energy. Cooling based on hot water saves enormous amounts of electric energy, which lowers the costs, increases the sustainability, and gives you efficient cooling producent from your own energy. Adsorption chillers can use any source of heat including industrial waste heat, solar heat, heat from cogeneration units, or heat from local hot water grid.
ART-KLIMA offers adsorption chillers, which produce cooling water in the proces of cyclic evaporation and condensation of water vapour in a low-pressure hermetic chamber. Adsorption chillers use extremely small amounts of electric energy, because they rely on adsorption instead of mechanical compression. Adsortion chillers are suited for using hot water with the temperature ranging from 50 °C to 95 °.
Our chillers use water as a refrigerant, opposed to the traditional chillers which use fluoride-based chemicals. Water is a superior refrigerant because it offers outstanding heat capacity, safety, ease of handling and no environmental concerns. Traditional electric-powered chillers cannot use water because water evaporates at very low pressures. Adsorption chillers operate on a different principle, and thus can use low-pressure water vapour as an efficient refrigerant. Our adsorption chillers have been developed and patented by a german company Sortech AG (now Fahrenheit AG).
Adsorption chiller consists of two connected modules, each consists of two elements:
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Evaporator / Condenser
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Adsorber / Desorber
Three water circuits
Adsorption Chillers supplied by ART-KLIMA are connected to three water circuits:
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Cold Water Circuit - The most important circuit for the user. Cold water circuit supplies cold water to the indoor units (i.e. fancoils). The cold water circuit provides cooling for your building, or for your machines. The temperature of the cold water can be set between 8°C and 21 °.
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Hot Water Circuit - Hot water circuit is the source of power for the chiller. Unlike a compressor-based chiller, adsorption chiller rely on heat as the power source. Our adsorption chillers work best when the temperature of hot water is between 75°C and 95 °.
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Warm Water Circuit - The heat taken from the hot water circuit, as well as the heat taken from the cold water circuit, has to be discharged to the environment. Warm water circuit is the heat sink of your installation. The heat transferred to the warm water circuit can be used to heat water in a swimming pool, or discharged to the atmosphere in a recooler.
Adsorption process
Our adsorption chillers produce cold water using four consecutive termodynamic processes:
Phase 1: Desorption / Adsorption
Desorber is filled with hot water. The working medium (water) which has been accumulated in the silica gel during adsorption phase is now discharged from the desorber and flows to the condenser, where it condenses. Condensing water vapour discharges waste heat to the condenser. The warm water flows through the condenser and takes the heat to the recooler. The warm water circuit is used to discharge the waste heat to the atmosphere.
Phase 2: Heat Recovery
Right after the end of the 1st and third phase the 3-way valve switches the flow of warm water from the condenser to the absorber. Energy, which was stored in desorber will not be recovered in the medium temperatures, but for sime time will be released to the hot water circuit.
The return flow from the second adsorber will be sent to the recooler only after the temperature difference between the two components will be achieved.
Phase 3: Desorption / Adsorption
Desorber is again filled with hot water. The working medium (water) which has been accumulated in the silica gel during adsorption phase is now discharged from the desorber and flows to the condenser, where it condenses.
Phase 4: Heat Recovery
The 3-way valve switches the flow of warm water from the condenser to the absorber. Energy, which was stored in desorber will not be recovered in the medium temperatures, but for sime time will be released to the hot water circuit. The return flow from the second adsorber will be sent to the recooler only after the temperature difference between the two components will be achieved.
