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Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds

Refrigeration devices for essential food storage and preservation of medicine are among the most significant techniques developed in the past few decades. In many regions of Africa, the shortage of sustainable power sources and the abundance of solar energy make solar refrigerators a promising solut...

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Main Author: Jin, Meihua
Other Authors: Vicatos, George
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Mechanical Engineering 2016
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access_status_str Open Access
author Jin, Meihua
author2 Vicatos, George
author_browse Jin, Meihua
Vicatos, George
author_facet Vicatos, George
Jin, Meihua
author_sort Jin, Meihua
collection Thesis
description Refrigeration devices for essential food storage and preservation of medicine are among the most significant techniques developed in the past few decades. In many regions of Africa, the shortage of sustainable power sources and the abundance of solar energy make solar refrigerators a promising solution for basic refrigeration needs. Among all the solar cooling techniques, the solar sorption refrigerator is considered to be a promising alternative to the dominant vapour-compression refrigerator, which encompasses both absorption and adsorption refrigerators. It has advantages of being silent, having no compressor, lasting a long life cycle, and utilising waste heat or solar energy. In this work, the development of sorption refrigerators is outlined, and as a part of it, a theoretical diffusion absorption chiller using organic compounds is designed. The alternative working fluids used is R134a as the refrigerant, tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether (TEG.DME) as the absorbent, and helium as the auxiliary gas. The corresponding modelling is carried out as a potential cooling system based on calculations. Furthermore, as a second part of this work, a laboratory prototype of a solid adsorption system being developed by the "Institute of Chemical Process Engineering (ICVT)" in Stuttgart University, is studied and compared. The study focuses on adsorption properties of methanol on activated carbon in adsorption process. Adsorption equilibrium data has been measured, and a good agreement between the measured equilibrium data and theoretical Dubinin-Astakhov model has been obtained. This prediction model can now be used to provide accurate data-sets, and consequently help to optimise the adsorption performance of the cooling unit. [Please note: this thesis file has been deferred until December 2016]
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:34:33.896Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2016
publishDateRange 2016
publishDateSort 2016
publisher Department of Mechanical Engineering
publisherStr Department of Mechanical Engineering
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source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20952 Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds Jin, Meihua Vicatos, George Mechanical Engineering Refrigeration devices for essential food storage and preservation of medicine are among the most significant techniques developed in the past few decades. In many regions of Africa, the shortage of sustainable power sources and the abundance of solar energy make solar refrigerators a promising solution for basic refrigeration needs. Among all the solar cooling techniques, the solar sorption refrigerator is considered to be a promising alternative to the dominant vapour-compression refrigerator, which encompasses both absorption and adsorption refrigerators. It has advantages of being silent, having no compressor, lasting a long life cycle, and utilising waste heat or solar energy. In this work, the development of sorption refrigerators is outlined, and as a part of it, a theoretical diffusion absorption chiller using organic compounds is designed. The alternative working fluids used is R134a as the refrigerant, tetraethylene glycol dimethyl ether (TEG.DME) as the absorbent, and helium as the auxiliary gas. The corresponding modelling is carried out as a potential cooling system based on calculations. Furthermore, as a second part of this work, a laboratory prototype of a solid adsorption system being developed by the "Institute of Chemical Process Engineering (ICVT)" in Stuttgart University, is studied and compared. The study focuses on adsorption properties of methanol on activated carbon in adsorption process. Adsorption equilibrium data has been measured, and a good agreement between the measured equilibrium data and theoretical Dubinin-Astakhov model has been obtained. This prediction model can now be used to provide accurate data-sets, and consequently help to optimise the adsorption performance of the cooling unit. [Please note: this thesis file has been deferred until December 2016] 2016-07-28T12:18:06Z 2016-07-28T12:18:06Z 2016 Master Thesis Masters MSc (Eng) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20952 eng application/pdf Department of Mechanical Engineering Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Mechanical Engineering
Jin, Meihua
Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds
title_full Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds
title_fullStr Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds
title_full_unstemmed Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds
title_short Theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds
title_sort theoretical aspects of sorption refrigeration using organic compounds
topic Mechanical Engineering
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20952
work_keys_str_mv AT jinmeihua theoreticalaspectsofsorptionrefrigerationusingorganiccompounds