INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESEARCH

Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640

An improved absorption refrigeration cycle driven

by unsteady thermal sources below 1003C

J. F. Wang*, G. C. Gao and G. M. Chen

Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenic Engineering, Energy Engineering Department,
Zhejiang University, 20 Yugu Road, Hangzhou 310027, People+s Republic of China

SUMMARY

This paper deals with an improved absorption refrigeration cycle with staged absorption. Instead of having
only one absorber, the improved cycle uses a series of absorbers among which one is cooled by the external
medium and the others are cooled by refrigerant at staged pressures between the evaporation pressure and
condensation pressure. Ammonia}lithium nitrates (NH }LiNO ) are selected as the working #uids and the
 
calculation results for the two-staged cycle and the three-staged cycle are analysed in detail. It is demon-
strated that the improved cycle is able to steadily run when driven by low-grade thermal sources as low as
653C, and to produce deep refrigeration temperature as low as !403C. Copyright  2000 John Wiley
& Sons, Ltd.

KEY WORDS: absorption refrigeration; cycle improvement; low-grade thermal source

INTRODUCTION

Absorption refrigeration is an attractive method for using thermal energy directly for cooling
purposes. Extensive studies have been reported in the literature on the improvement of the
absorption refrigeration cycle driven by high-temperature (more than 1003C) thermal sources,
such as the double- and triple-e!ect absorption refrigeration cycles (Ziegler et al., 1993), the
combined ejector}absorption cycle (Aphomratuna and Eames, 1998), the newly improved cycle
(Berlitz et al., 1998), and so on. However, research on absorption refrigeration cycles driven by
low-temperature (lower than 1003C) thermal sources is relatively limited. It is well known that the
low-grade thermal sources are widely available from industrial processes, #at-plate solar collec-
tors, automobile exhausts and so on. The two special features of this kind of thermal sources are
their low temperatures ranging from 60 to 903C, and their instability in temperature and/or
quantity. As a result, a large portion of industrial waste heat is released to the atmosphere.
Therefore, research on further utilization of low-grade thermal sources is of great economic
signi"cance.

* Correspondence to: J. F. Wang, Institute of Refrigeration and Cryogenic Engineering, Energy Engineering Department,
Zhejiang University, 20 Yugu Road, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China. E-mail: [email protected]

Received 19 July 1999

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 3 September 1999
634 J. F. WANG, G. C. GAO AND G. M. CHEN

In order to apply unsteady low-temperature thermal sources to absorption refrigeration, the

refrigeration cycles need be able to adapt to the typical features of the thermal sources. Basically,
it is most important for the refrigeration cycles to be able to steadily run when the temperatures of
thermal sources change periodically or temporally. Traditional ammonia}water two-staged
absorption refrigeration cycle is usually applied to the recovery of such kind of thermal sources
for refrigeration temperatures below !103C, as was described in ASHRAE (1993). Nevertheless,
the refrigeration systems with the cycle will be complex and the investment in system components
will obviously increase. Accordingly, the improvement in the traditional cycles is very necessary
and signi"cant.
Sun (1998) proposed a combined ejector}vapour}compression refrigeration cycle, which con-
sists of a traditional ejector refrigeration sub-cycle and a mechanical vapour}compression
sub-cycle. An inter-cooler is used for the connection of the two sub-cycles, which serves as the
evaporator for the former and as the condenser for the latter. It was concluded that, if the cycle is
powered by waste heat and the cost of its supply can be neglected, the COP values will be much
higher, and if dual refrigerants are used the performance can be further improved.
Thioye (1998a, b) proposed an absorption refrigeration cycle with multi-staged absorption and
desorption (CADE), which is incorporated with a series of intermediate absorbers used for
absorption and a series of generators used for desorption. Fundamentally, the CADE is the result
of extending the traditional two-staged cycle to the multi-staged cycle. It was pointed out that the
CADE permitted a decrease of generators' temperature down to a level that no system among
those previously o!ered can run. In addition, the CADE was proved to be very suitable for the
use of low-grade thermal sources (65}1003C) in refrigeration ((!103C) with sink temperature
as high as 303C and with a realistic approach of 103C for all the heat exchangers. However, like
the traditional two-staged absorption refrigeration cycle, the system complexities of the cycle will
further increase with the increase of the stage number.
Su et al. (1998) studied a new absorption refrigeration cycle with two-staged absorption. This
cycle is mainly composed of one additional evaporator}absorber compared with the traditional
single-stage cycle. The calculated results with ammonia-water as its working #uids demonstrated
that the COP of the new cycle is almost the same as that of the traditional two-staged cycle, and
its system con"guration is relatively compact.
Rivera et al. (1998) studied a double-absorption heat transformer (DAHT) for temperature lifts
with water/lithium bromide and carrol mixture as its working #uids. The DAHT basically has the
same main components and similar cycle compared to the absorption refrigeration cycle with
two-staged absorption studied in Su et al. (1998).
This paper extends the two-staged absorption of the new cycle in Su et al. (1998) to the
three-staged and higher multi-staged absorption. The resulting three-staged cycle is shown in
Figure 1. Compared with the traditional multi-staged absorption refrigeration cycle (Thioye,
1998a, b), the improved cycle does not include a series of intermediate generators used for
intermediate desorption. This paper mainly deals with the adaptability of the improved cycle (with
multi-staged absorption) to the unsteady thermal sources and the low refrigeration temperatures.

CYCLE DESCRIPTION

Figure 1 shows a #ow chart of the improved absorption refrigeration cycle with
three-staged absorption. It basically consists of a generator, a condenser, an evaporator, two

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640
 IMPROVED ABSORPTION REFRIGERATION CYCLE 635

Figure 1. Improved absorption refrigeration cycle with three-staged absorption.

evaporator}absorbers, one absorber, three solution heat exchangers, and three solution pumps.
A thermal source is supplied to separate the working #uids in the generator at the generation
temperature. Then the condensed liquid refrigerant is divided into three branches. The "rst
branch is throttled by the valve TV1 to the evaporator where it is completely evaporated to
supply cooling capacity at evaporation pressure P , then the vapourized refrigerant enters into

the evaporator}absorber A3 and is absorbed by the weak solution coming from the generator.
The second branch is expanded by the throttle valve TV2, and then passes A3 to absorb the
absorption heat of A3 to be vapourized. It leaves A3 and then goes to the second evapor-
ator}absorber A2 to be absorbed by the solution pumped from A3 into A2. The produced
absorption heat in A2 is absorbed by the third refrigerant branch that is expanded by the throttle
valve TV3. The third vapourized refrigerant branch further enters into the main absorber A1 to
be absorbed by the solution pumped from A2 into A1. The absorption heat produced in A1 is
absorbed by the external cooling medium, such as the circulating cooling water. The three
refrigerant branches are absorbed at di!erent pressures and di!erent temperatures in A1, A2, and
A3, respectively. The refrigerant pressure of the "rst branch leaving the evaporator is the lowest,
the pressure of the second branch passing TV2 is the intermediate, and the pressure of the third
branch passing TV3 is the highest. Both the increase in the absorption pressure of A1 and A2, and
the decrease in the absorption temperature of A2 and A3, are the main reasons that the
three-staged cycle can maintain steadily running with enough concentration di!erence at lower
generation temperature and/or deeper evaporation temperature. It is the result at the cost of
using two refrigerant branches to absorb the absorption heat produced in A2 and A3, respective-
ly. The three solution heat exchangers are used for enhancing the COPs of the cycle. It will be
shown that this arrangement of the cycle is not e!ective when the generation temperature or the
evaporation temperature is not low enough.
With the same arrangement, we can obtain the improved cycle with the two-staged absorption,
as is shown in Figure 2, which was studied in Su et al. (1998). Similarly, the improved cycle with
N-staged (N"2, 3, 4, 2 ) absorption is able to be drawn if required. In order to simplify our

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640
636 J. F. WANG, G. C. GAO AND G. M. CHEN

Figure 2. Improved absorption refrigeration cycle with two-staged absorption.

calculations and analyses, we emphasize on the two- and three-staged absorption refrigeration
cycles, which are selected as two examples of the improved cycle proposed in this paper.
Compared with the absorption refrigeration cycle (Thioye, 1998a, b), the improved cycle
proposed in this paper is relatively compact as the former has a series of both generators used for
desorption and absorbers used for absorption. Moreover, the improved cycle proposed in this
paper is di!erent from the traditional two-stage, three-stage, and other higher-staged absorption
cycles.

SIMULATION

Ammonia}water (NH }H O) is usually used as working #uids of absorption refrigeration

 
systems for temperatures below 03C. However, the systems with ammonia}lithium nitrate
(NH }LiNO ) were proved to be more superior to those with NH }H O. Numerical simulation
   
for the improved cycle is conducted with NH }LiNO as its working #uids. The thermophysical
 
data of NH }LiNO are obtained from the equations in Infante Ferreira (1984). The following
 
assumptions are applied to the simulation calculations:

(a) The heat loss and #ow resistance are neglected.

(b) The state points including 1, 3, 5, and 6 in Figure 1 are saturated solutions. Point 8 is the
saturated refrigerant liquid. State points 9}11 are saturated refrigerant vapour.
(c) The temperature di!erences of the three solution heat exchangers HE1, HE2, and HE3 at
their cold sides are 53C, i.e. ¹ !¹ "¹ !¹ "¹ !¹ "53C. The temperature
  
  
di!erences between the absorption temperature and the evaporation temperature of the
refrigerant in the two evaporator}absorbers A2 and A3 are 53C, i.e. ¹ !¹ "
 
¹ !¹ "53C.
 
(d) The e$ciency of solution pumps P1, P2, and P3 is 0.5.

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640
 IMPROVED ABSORPTION REFRIGERATION CYCLE 637

The coe$cient of performance (COP) is de"ned as

Q
COP"  (1)
Q #=
 
where Q is the cooling capacity, Q is the generation heat, = is the total electric power input to
  
the solution pumps.
If ¹ , ¹ , ¹ and ¹ are given, the #ow rates and operating pressures of the second refrigerant
  
branch passing TV2 and the third refrigerant branch passing TV3 can be obtained by numerical
iteration based upon the mass and energy balances in A1}A3. Other simulation calculations are
similar to those for the traditional cycle with the mass and energy balances in every component,
such as those described in Wang et al. (1998).
Moreover, the following temperature values are selected as the reference state for the analysis
and comparison:
Generation temperature: ¹ "803C

Evaporation temperature in evaporator E: ¹ "!103C

Absorption temperature in absorber A1: ¹ "403C
Condensation temperature: ¹ "403C


RESULT ANALYSIS

Figure 3 displays the e!ects of generation temperature on COPs. The lowest thermal source
temperatures 60, 70, and 953C can be utilized, respectively, for the three-staged cycle, the two-
staged cycle, and for the traditional single-staged cycle. When ¹ '953C, it can be seen that

COP 'COP 'COP . When 703C(¹ (953C, COP 'COP . When 603C(¹ (703C,

 
 
COP 'COP . It is interesting to "nd that COP and COP are almost kept unchanged, and



COP is about 0.29, COP is about 0.19. From Figure 3, one can deduce that the improved cycles


can steadily operate under lower generation temperatures, although the COPs seem to be
relatively low. Low-temperature thermal sources, such as solar energy, can be utilized for
refrigeration by using the improved cycle.

Figure 3. E!ects of generation temperature on COPs.

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640
638 J. F. WANG, G. C. GAO AND G. M. CHEN

Figure 4. E!ects of evaporation temperature on COPs.

Figure 5. E!ects of condensation and absorption temperatures on COPs.

Figure 4 shows the COPs versus the evaporation temperature. With the given temperature
values as remarked above, the limitation refrigeration temperatures are 0, !23, and !473C,
respectively, for the traditional cycle, two- and three-staged cycles. When !233C(¹ (03C,

COP "0.16}0.34, COP "0.16}0.23, i.e. COP 'COP . When !453C(¹ (!233C,


 
COP 'COP , COP "0.08}0.16, and COP "0.0. From Figure 4, it is known that the



improved cycles considerably extend the refrigeration temperature ranges.
Figure 5 displays the variation of COPs versus the absorption and condensation temperatures.
The COP decreases sharply when ¹ and ¹ increase from 30 to 353C. However, the COP is


kept nearly constant when ¹ and ¹ increase from 25 to 403C. Similarly, the COP is
 
approximately equal to 0.2 when ¹ and ¹ increase from 25 to 453C. In contrast to the

traditional cycle, the improved cycle is able to operate more steadily and continuously when the
external cooling conditions happen to deteriorate.
From Figures 3}5, it can be seen that COP 'COP 'COP when ¹ '973C, or ¹ '33C,

  
or ¹ "¹ (323C. This is due to the special arrangement of the improved cycles, i.e. a portion of

liquid refrigerant is directly fed to the evaporator}absorbers and is used as the internal cooling
medium of the evaporator}absorbers.

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640
 IMPROVED ABSORPTION REFRIGERATION CYCLE 639

CONCLUSION AND FURTHER WORK

Compared with the traditional absorption refrigeration cycle, the performance of the improved
absorption refrigeration cycle with the staged absorption can be obviously improved by incor-
porating a series of evaporator}absorbers. The simulation results with ammonia}lithium nitrate
as working #uids have demonstrated that the improved cycle is able to steadily run when driven
by low-grade thermal sources as low as 653C, and to produce deep refrigeration temperature as
low as !403C for the three-staged cycle.
The performance of the improved absorption refrigeration cycle with two-staged, three-staged,
or higher multi-staged absorption proposed in this paper will be further improved by using
ejectors to enhance the absorption pressures, like the method given in Wang et al. (1998). Another
possible method is to adopt the two-stage, three-stage, or higher multi-stage refrigerant expan-
sion instead of the parallel-divided refrigerant expansion in Figures 1 and 2, like the method
proposed in Berlitz et al. (1998). The applications of these two methods will enhance the COPs
and further strengthen the adaptability of the refrigeration cycles.

NOMENCLATURE

A1 "absorber, see Figures 1 and 2.

A2 "evaporator-absorber, see Figures 1 and 2.
A3 "evaporator-absorber, see Figures 1 and 2.
C "condenser, see Figures 1 and 2
COP "coe$cient of performance
COP "COP of the traditional single-stage absorption refrigeration cycle
COP "COP of the improved cycle with two-staged absorption, shown in Figure 2


COP "COP of the improved cycle with three-staged absorption, shown in Figure 1

E "evaporator, see Figure 1 and 2.
G "generator, see Figure 1 and 2.
HE1 "solution heat exchanger
HE2 "solution heat exchanger
HE3 "solution heat exchanger
P1 "solution pump
P2 "solution pump
P3 "solution pump
PRV "liquid pressure reducing valve
Q "thermal energy
¹ "temperature
TV1 "throttle valve
TV2 "throttle valve
TV3 "throttle valve
= "electric power input to solution pumps

Subscripts
a "absorption
c "condensation

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640
640 J. F. WANG, G. C. GAO AND G. M. CHEN

e "evaporation
g "generation
p "solution pump
1, 2, 2, "state points, see Figure 1 or 2.

REFERENCES

Aphornratuna S, Eames IW. 1998. International Journal of Energy Research 22:195.

ASHRAE, 1993. ASHRAE Handbook Fundamentals. ASHRAE Inc.: Atlanta, USA.
Berlitz T, Plank H, Ziegler F, Kahn R. 1998. International Journal of Refrigeration, 21:219.
Infante Ferreira CA. 1984. Solar Energy 32:231.
Rivera W, Cardoso MJ, Romero RJ. 1998. International Journal of Energy Research 22:427.
Su X, Liu G, Yuan X. 1998. Acta Energiae Solaris Sinica, 19:314 (in Chinese).
Sun DW. 1998. International Journal of Energy Research 22:333.
Thioye M. 1997a. International Journal of Refrigeration 20:136.
Thioye M. 1997b. International Journal of Refrigeration 20:283.
Wang J, Chen G, Jiang H. 1998. International Journal of Energy Research 22:733.
Ziegler F, Kahn R, Summerer, S, Alefeld G. 1993. International Journal of Refrigeration, 16:301.

Copyright  2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Energy Res. 2000; 24:633}640