ME 501 ADVANCED THERMODYNAMICS ABSORPTION RERIGERATION An absorption refrigeration cycle consists of the following steps1.

Heat is supplied to the gas generator, which generates ammonia gas from a liquid waterammonia mixture. 2. The two-phase solution flows to the separator, where the liquid water is separated from the ammonia gas. 3. The ammonia gas flows upward to the condenser. The condenser is a basic heat exchanger composed of metal coils and fins that allow the ammonia gas to dissipate its thermal energy and condense into a liquid. 4. The liquid ammonia then flows to the evaporator, where it evaporates in an endothermic process. The cooling load generated is equal to the mass flow rate of ammonia times its latent heat. 5. The ammonia gas flows into the absorber, where the water that was collected in the separator is mixed with the ammonia gas. The ammonia forms a solution with the water. The ammonia-and-water solution flows back to the generator to repeat the cycle. The heat source is usually waste heat from an industrial process. It can also come directly from combustion or a solar collector in a sunny area. For an isentropic steady-flow compression process, the work of compression is
W = m

" v dP

Since v is much smaller for liquids than for vapors, it obviously takes less energy to pump a liquid through a given pressure rise than it does a vapor for the same end points, which is one of ! the advantages of absorption refrigeration. Ammonia was one of the early refrigerants used in conventional refrigerators, but fell out of favor due to health hazards when it leaks (and refrigerants do leak out of refrigeration cycles.) In the traditional refrigeration cycle ammonia would be pumped as a gas through a compressor, but in absorption-refrigeration it is pumped when dissolved into solution with water, so that less pumping work is needed. There has been some renewed interest in using pure ammonia in conventional refrigeration systems due to the difficulty in finding refrigerants that are not ozone depleting or greenhouse gases. The main replacements for ammonia in the old refrigerators were CFCs such as R-12 (also known by the trade name Freon-12), chemical formula CCl2F2. Chlorine in the stratosphere is extremely destructive to ozone, destroying it in a catalytic process in which the chlorine itself is not consumed. Cl + O3 " ClO + O2 ClO + O3 " Cl + 2O2 A single chlorine atom can destroy tens of thousands of ozone molecules. Chlorine released at ! level will not travel to the stratosphere, but when contained in a CFC molecule it can ground ! make it that high.

A schematic of an absorption-refrigeration system is below. This becomes equivalent to a conventional refrigeration cycle if you replace everything on the right hand side with a compressor.

Advantages of Absorption Refrigeration: Requires minimal work input Can make use of waste heat from another process Can be used where no electricity is available Absorption refrigeration is growing in importance as energy conservation considerations demand closer scrutiny of the disposition of heat rejection from thermal processes. Absorption refrigeration provides a constructive means of utilizing waste heat or heat from inexpensive sources at a temperature in the range of 100 C to 200 C. Absorption refrigerators are a popular alternative to regular compressor refrigerators where electricity is unreliable, costly, or unavailable, where noise from the compressor is problematic, or where surplus heat is available (e.g. from turbine exhausts or industrial processes).

In addition to the ammonia-water system mentioned above, there is also an absorptionrefrigeration cycle that used water in liquid lithium bromide as the solution, where water is the refrigerant and lithium bromide the carrier fluid. The very cold boiling water from the evaporator is absorbed in concentrated salt solution. These systems operate at very low pressure, with an evaporator pressure of about 1.0 kPa (0.145 psi), and the generator and the condenser operate at about 10.0 kPa (1.45 psi). Increasing use of absorption refrigeration now occurs in refrigeration units for comfort space cooling, for which refrigerant temperatures of 45 to 50 F (7.2 to 10 C) are suitable. Absorption refrigeration is also used in portable refrigerators, such as on RVs, where burning propane or kerosene or even gasoline usually provides the heat energy. Absorption refrigerators are also called gas refrigerators or absorption chillers. There is also considerable research being done on solar-heat source absorption refrigeration machines. If refrigeration could be achieved using only solar energy, operation costs will be kept to a minimum, as the only operating costs would be the maintenance associated with the systems use. There are many locations around the world where electrical power is not readily available or is unreliable. A solar powered refrigeration unit could be used to keep medical supplies cool for extended lengths of time. There are also many instances where people do not have access to electricity or gas to power a refrigeration system. For this reason people are not able to store food as they would if they had electricity. Also in some parts of the world electricity is available but expensive. The theoretical coefficient of performance of a reversible absorption refrigerator is:
COP = TL # TO & %1 " ( TO " TL $ TH '

where TH is the heat source temperature, TO is the ambient temperature, and TL is the refrigerator temperature.
Example: An absorption refrigeration system receives heat from a source at 110C and maintains the refrigerated space at -20C. If the temperature of the environment is 25C, what is the maximum COP this absorption refrigeration system can have? Solution: Outside temperature (TO) = 25C = 298 K Source temperature (TH) = 110C = 383 K Refrigeration temperature (TL) = -20C = 253 K COP = (1 (To/TH))*(TL/(To-TL)) COP = (1 (298 K/383 K))*(253 K/(298 K- 253 K)) COP = 1.25 Note the coefficient of performance is low compared to a conventional refrigerator. Though this is not exactly a fair comparison since the waste heat may be Free in certain situations.