.

Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

Solution procedure and performance evaluation for a watereLiBr

absorption refrigeration machine
Jason Wonchala, Maxwell Hazledine, Kiari Goni Boulama*
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario K7K7B4, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 12 July 2013
Received in revised form
27 November 2013
Accepted 30 November 2013
Available online 28 December 2013

The waterelithium bromide absorption cooling machine was investigated theoretically in this paper. A
detailed solution procedure was proposed and validated. A parametric study was conducted over the
entire admissible ranges of the desorber, condenser, absorber and evaporator temperatures. The performance of the machine was evaluated based on the circulation ratio which is a measure of the system
size and cost, the rst law coefcient of performance and the second law exergy efciency. The circulation ratio and the coefcient of performance were seen to improve as the temperature of the heat
source increased, while the second law performance deteriorated. The same qualitative responses were
obtained when the temperature of the refrigerated environment was increased. On the other hand,
simultaneously raising the condenser and absorber temperatures was seen to result in a severe deterioration of both the circulation ratio and rst law coefcient of performance, while the second law
performance indicator improved signicantly. The inuence of the difference between the condenser and
absorber exit temperatures, as well as that of the internal recovery heat exchanger on the different
performance indicators was also calculated and discussed.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Absorption cooling
WatereLiBr
Solution procedure
Circulation ratio
1st law
2nd law

1. Introduction
Heating, refrigeration and air conditioning constitutes one of the
most important items of the modern day energy bill. In addition to
being high energy demanding equipment, vapour compression
refrigeration machines operate based on the conversion of high
quality electrical energy into low quality thermal energy. The
search for more energy efcient technologies in general, and the
research on absorption refrigeration systems in particular are
currently gaining momentum, driven by the ever increasing cost of
fossil fuels and the need for adopting environmentally responsible
practices in society. In absorption refrigeration machines, the
refrigerant vapour exiting the evaporator is absorbed into a lean
solution and the pressurization takes place in the liquid phase, thus
requiring very little electrical energy. The mixture is then heated in
a generator to separate the refrigerant from the absorbent, before
the former is sent to the condenser. Absorption refrigeration machines are therefore essentially powered by heat, which not only
minimizes exergy depredations, but it also allows for the use of free
thermal energy resources such as low-grade industrial heat, solar

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 613 541 6000; fax: 1 613 542 8612.
E-mail address: Goni.Boulama@rmc.ca (K. Goni Boulama).
0360-5442/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.11.087

energy, geothermal energy, etc. A large body of literature has been

generated on absorption refrigeration over the years, with
ammoniaewater and waterelithium bromide (hereafter referred to
as watereLiBr) as the most commonly used refrigeranteabsorbent
pairs. Several authors have investigated the sensitivity of the performance of the ammoniaewater absorption cooling machine to
operation conditions including the heat source and ambient temperatures, the refrigerant concentration in the mixture circulated
through the condenser and evaporator, etc. [1e3], while other authors have proposed various modications to the cycle layout in
order to improve the performance [4,5].
Although the ammoniaewater cycle is an older technology, it
still remains essentially applied to large scale process plants, and
the watereLiBr absorption cycle concentrates most of the current
research and development efforts [6]. The main requirements for
working uids to be used in absorption cooling were summarized
in Refs. [6e8], and include a signicantly higher volatility for the
refrigerant compared to the absorbent, an afnity of the absorbent
to the refrigerant at low temperature, moderate operating pressures, and a high refrigerant heat of vaporization. Florides et al. [8]
concluded that the watereLiBr couple was better suited than the
ammoniaewater couple when a low temperature heat source such
as solar energy is used to drive the machine. The watereLiBr
working uid pair was therefore used to simulate a single effect

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

Nomenclature
COP
ECOP
f
h
_
m
P
Q_
T
_
W
X

coefcient of performance [e]

exergy or second law efciency [e]
circulation or ow ratio [e]
specic enthalpy [kJ/kg]
mass ow rate [kg/s]
pressure [kPa]
heat transfer rate [W]
temperature [ C, K]
mechanical power [W]
refrigerant mass fraction in working uid solution [e]

273

Subscripts
abs
absorber
cond
condenser
des
desorber or generator
evap
evaporator
in/out
going into/leaving component
pump
pump
rev
reversible
s
isentropic
sat
saturation conditions
SHEX
solution heat exchanger
waste
waste heat, free heat source

Greek letter
h
efciency [e]

absorption cooling machine and extract design data for a small

1 kW unit which was afterwards used for validation and cost
analysis purposes.
Eisa et al. [9] conducted an experimental investigation on a
watereLiBr absorption cooling machine, and observed that the
coefcient of performance (COP) of the machine was higher when
the temperature of the heat source was high. The same authors also
observed that the operation of the machine was affected by the
temperatures of the condenser and absorber, with the COP
consistently increasing as the difference Tcond  Tabs increased.
Joudi and Lafta [10] conducted a study on the watereLiBr absorption cooling machine, including a detailed nite difference analysis
of the heat and mass transfer processes in the absorber. Amongst
other results, the authors showed that the cooling capacity and COP
both increased with increasing heat source temperature, with a
slightly better performance when the condenser and absorber were
cooled in a parallel conguration as opposed to a series conguration. Sencan et al. [11] used second law considerations to investigate both the cooling and heating performances of a watereLiBr
absorption machine. In the case of cooling, the COP increased and
the exergy efciency decreased when the heat source temperature
or the evaporator temperature increased, while both the rst and
second law efciencies of the heating machine increased when the
evaporator temperature increased. Morosuk and Tsatsaronis [12]
noted that while the vast majority of the published work on absorption cooling adopted the classical rst and/or second law approaches, splitting the exergy destruction in each component of the
machine as endogenous/exogenous and unavoidable/avoidable
constitutes a unique tool for an accurate identication of where
efciency gains are more likely to be achieved. According to these
authors, most of the cycle irreversibility is concentrated in the
desorber and absorber; however as much as 2/3 of the total exergy
losses are in fact unavoidable.
When the heat source temperature is high enough, a doubleeffect conguration has been suggested. It uses a two-step separation process in two high and low pressure generators. However,
Gomri [13] noted that while the double effect absorption cycles
COP was twice as large as that of the single effect cycle, its second
law performance was only slightly higher than that of the simpler
cycle conguration. For heat source temperatures too high for an
efcient operation of a single-effect machine and too low for an
efcient operation of a double-effect cooling machine, Hong et al.
[14] proposed the evaporatoreabsorbereexchange absorption cycle (EAX), which uses two generators (the thermal energy of the
refrigerant vapour leaving the rst generator used as the heat

source for the second generator) and two absorbers. Other modications to the cycle have been proposed, including one which uses
an ejector to inject the refrigerant out of the generator into the
condenser [15], and the so-called improved single-effect/doublelift absorption machine for which the desorption process is performed in two generators in a series arrangement, each generator
being associated with a pump, a throttle valve, a solution heat
exchanger and an absorber [16]. The latter conguration consistently resulted in a lower COP and a better utilization of the heat
source than the standard single effect absorption machine
conguration.
Solar energy constitutes a popular application of absorption
refrigeration. Among other authors, Onan et al. [17] studied a solar
energy assisted watereLiBr absorption cooling machine, estimating
the hourly variations of the available free energy, outdoor temperature and cooling load of a typical residence during the entire
cooling season in Turkey, and adopting rst and second law approaches to determine the performances of both the solar collector
and refrigeration machine. Xu et al. [18] studied a solar energy
powered absorption cooling machine equipped with a so-called
advanced energy storage system. Palacin et al. [19] validated a
dynamic simulation code using a commercial 4.5 kW solar energy
powered watereLiBr absorption chiller, and used their code to
design and predict the performance of the chiller with an improved
geothermal heat rejection system. Izquierto et al. [20] proposed an
experimental evaluation of a 7 kW natural gas powered air-cooled
watereLiBr absorption machine with hourly varying condenser and
absorber temperatures, obtaining a mean daily COP of 1.05 and a
volume effectiveness of 6 kW/m3, which outperforms the only then
available similar commercial absorption chiller. The cost of the
proposed non-optimized prototype was evaluated to be 15.9%
higher than that of vapour compression refrigeration machines.
Several studies are also available in the literature where absorption
cooling is part of complex industrial processes. For example, Sun
[21] proposed an experimental study where the waste heat at the
exhaust of a gas turbine was used to power a watereLiBr absorption
chiller, which in turn was used to reduce to load of a mechanical
compression cooling machine. In another study, eight different
arrangements were evaluated for the integration of absorption
cooling in a LNG plant [22]. Absorption cooling has also been used
in combined cooling, heating and power generation applications
(CCHP) [23e25]. Cost and pollutant emissions considerations were
included in Ref. [24], while absorption cooling was coupled to an
organic Rankine cycle (ORC) in Ref. [25]. In both cases, little details
are provided on the absorption cooling process itself.

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J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

A review of more than 100 patents on absorption cooling was

published by Wang and Chua [26], covering cycle congurations,
component developments and working uid modications for
crystallization control. In fact, crystallization has been recognized
as one of the most critical problems of the watereLiBr absorption
cooling technology, and occurs when the concentration of lithium
bromide increases or the lean solution temperature decreases
beyond a certain limit, eventually resulting in operation interruption or damage to the machine. A specic review on crystallization
control strategies was also recently compiled by Wang et al. [27],
discussing the use of chemical inhibitors, heat and mass transfer
enhancement methods, thermodynamic cycle modications
referred to as self-decrystallization methods, etc. In addition to the
crystallization problems, the freezing temperature of water limits
the temperature at which the evaporator could be operated, and
connes the watereLiBr absorption refrigeration to relatively high
temperature cooling as applicable to room air-conditioning.
Other working uid pairs than ammoniaewater and watereLiBr
have been tested by different research groups around the world,
Macriss et al. [28] inventorying 40 refrigerant compounds and 200
absorbent compounds as far back as 1988. Included in the list of
possible working uids are conventional vapour compression refrigerants such as R22 and R134a [29,30] and alkanes [31], which
however are associated with a low latent heat of vaporization, in
addition to health and safety concerns and complex separation
processes [7].
The foregoing literature review demonstrates that absorption
refrigeration, particularly using the watereLiBr mixture working
uid, is a topical subject, and many of its aspects have been well
covered by a number of studies. However, different hypotheses
were adopted depending on the authors, the explicit list and
justication of the adopted hypotheses and operation parameters
were sometimes omitted [4], and the solution procedure was
generally absent. As a consequence, validation and repeatability are
difcult to achieve and, for example, there is no denitive
consensus on whether the COP asymptotically approaches a
maximum value when the desorber temperature increases, or if it
eventually switches variations and declines after having reached a
maximum. The role of the temperature difference between the
absorber and the condenser has not been adequately discussed, nor
have the benets of adding internal heat exchangers been quantitatively discussed.
The objective of this paper is to conduct a theoretical study of
the single-effect watereLiBr absorption cooling machine, starting
with the presentation and validation of a detailed solution algorithm. The latter will then be applied to investigate the sensitivity
of the systems classical rst law performance indicators (COP and
individual components heat duty) and second law efciency to a
large number of operation conditions, including the amount and
temperature level of the primary heat source, the temperature of
the refrigerated environment, the temperatures at which the
condenser and absorber reject heat, and the efciency of the solution heat exchanger. The paper also proposes to provide an
insight into the sizing and cost of the absorption cooling machine
through the calculation of the cycle circulation ratio (i.e. the ratio
between the mass ow rate of the weak solution at the exit of the
absorber to that of the refrigerant circulated through the evaporator) under different combinations of the operating parameters.
2. Cycle description
A schematic representation of a simple single-effect absorption
refrigeration cycle is shown in Fig.1. It consists of 8 main components:
a desorber, a condenser, an evaporator, an absorber, a pump, two
throttle valves, and a heat exchanger (SHEX). The working uid is a

Qdes

Qcond
3

Condenser

Desorber

2p

SHEX
7p

Throttle
valve

Pump

High pressure
Low pressure

Evaporator

Qevap

Wpump

Absorber

Qabs

Fig. 1. Schematic representation of a watereLiBr absorption refrigeration cycle.

mixture of water and lithium-bromide, with varying composition

throughout the cycle. The desorber is the component where thermal
energy Q_ des is provided to the machine to evaporate the water from
the watereLiBr solution. The temperature at which Q_ des is available
may be referred to as the driving temperature of the machine because of
the key role it plays on the operation and performance of the machine. The high pressure steam at the exit of the desorber ows to the
condenser where thermal energy Q_ cond is rejected to a cooling medium generally at ambient temperature, for condensation to occur. A
throttle valve is used to reduce the pressure and allow the refrigerant
to pick up thermal energy Q_ evap at the low temperature of the
evaporator and subsequently return to the vapour phase. Q_ evap represents the useful effect of the machine, i.e. the cooling capacity of the
refrigeration machine. At the exit of the evaporator, the low pressure
steam is absorbed into the lithium-bromide rich solution coming
from the desorber. The absorption process is exothermic and thermal
energy Q_ abs is rejected to a cooling medium. The absorber and
condenser cooling is designed differently (heat transfer uid, series
vs. parallel-ow arrangements, etc.) depending on the studies,
resulting in T1 T4 in some cases [2,3,5,11,13e16,30,31], and T1 s T4 in
other cases [1,4,8e10,12,17,20,29]. The pressure of the watereLiBr
solution at the exit of the absorber is raised using a pump, before the
mixture is returned to the desorber for a new cycle. Consistent with
the majoritarily adopted ASHRAE nomenclature [7], the working uid
solutions owing through the pump and leaving the desorber are
hereto referred to as the weak and strong solutions, respectively, with
reference to their relative afnity for the refrigerant. The solution heat
exchanger is not an essential component of the cycle, but it allows for
the weak solution to be preheated using part of the thermal energy of
the boiling strong solution exiting the desorber, resulting in an
improved energy efciency. The refrigeration machine is completely
determined by the enthalpy and mass ow rate of the working uid
upstream and downstream of each of the cycle components, the heat
transfer rates at the ve heat exchangers, and the power consumption
by the pump. Considering the working uid temperature, pressure,
refrigerant mass fraction, enthalpy and mass ow rate at each of the
10 states of the cycle and the 5 energy transfer rates shown in Fig. 1,
the cycle is therefore dened by a total of 55 variables.
3. Analysis
The object of this paragraph is to present the assumptions and
equations necessary for the determination of the 55 unknown

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

variables of the refrigeration cycle illustrated in Fig. 1. Firstly,

assuming a steady-state operation, 9 total mass conservation
equations and 9 refrigerant (i.e. water in either the liquid or vapour
phases) conservation equations could be written at the boundaries
of the 8 components of the cycle:

_
m

in

_
m

(1)

out

X
X
_
_
X m
X m
in

(2)

out

where Xi is the mass fraction of the refrigerant in the working uid

at State i.
Next, 8 energy conservation equations could also be written for
the 8 components of the cycle:

X
X
_
_
_
mh

mh
Q_  W
out

(3)

in

Jacket heat transfer at the solution heat exchanger, pump,

throttle valves, and through the piping system was neglected in all
reviewed papers, and the same assumption is adopted in the present analysis.
The temperature, pressure, mixture composition and enthalpy
at each of the 10 points of the cycle are interrelated, which provides
10 property correlations of the form:

h hT; P; X

(4)

The analytical correlations proposed by Sun [32] and Patek and

Klomfar [33,34] were used successfully in some previous studies
[11,13e16], and are also used in the present study.
During the desorption process, lithium-bromide salt not being a
volatile chemical, only pure water is evaporated and exits the top of
the generator:

X3 1

(5)

It is also assumed that line pressure losses and pressure variations in all components except for those especially designed for
pressurization (pump) and depressurization (throttle valves) are
negligible, noting that the pressure losses at select portions of the
pipe network were roughly estimated in Refs. [1,12], while the
pressure losses at the absorber were accounted for in Ref. [23]. For
the present study, the following 8 equations apply:

P2 P2p P3 P4 P7 P7p

(6)

P1 P5 P6 P8

(7)

The weak solution at the exit of the absorber, the strong solution at the exit of the desorber and the refrigerant leaving the
condenser and evaporator are assumed to be in saturation conditions. While these are rather common assumptions, they are
not always clearly stated [2,4,11,23,31], and saturated liquid
conditions at the inlet of the evaporator have for example been
assumed in Ref. [9].

State 1:

Saturated liquid solution

(8)

State 4:

Saturated liquid refrigerant

(9)

State 6:

Saturated vapour refrigerant

(10)

State 7:

Saturated liquid solution

(11)

275

A large variety of assumptions have been made by different authors for the refrigerant vapour leaving the desorber. This may be due
to the wide range of design possibilities, from a simple boiler to
actively controlled arrangements of vapour generators, distillation
columns, condensers, superheaters, subcoolers, etc. For example, the
temperature of the refrigerant vapour at the exit of the desorber was
arbitrarily prescribed in Ref. [8], T3T4 was used in Ref. [10],
T3T75  C was used in Ref. [15], T3T7 was used in Refs. [11,30], while
this information was not explicit in some other studies [4,13]. In the
present study, a simple design is considered with the weak solution
ashed from the top of desorber where the refrigerant in the vapour
phase leaves the component [2,9,23,32]. In this conguration, the
temperature at State 3 corresponds to the equilibrium temperature of
the weak solution at the desorber pressure [7]:



T3 Tsat P2p ; X2p

(12)

The temperature of the bubbling solution at the bottom of the

desorber (State 7) is the highest temperature of the cycle, and it is
directly related to that of the thermal energy used to power the
absorption machine. In this study, Q_ des and T7 are specied, which
is equivalent to dening the design and size of the heat exchanger.
Similarly, the condensation temperature T4 is specied in this
study, which is equivalent to selecting the ambient temperature
and a condenser design. The same applies to the absorber exit
temperature T1.

Q_ des

prescribed

(13)

T7

prescribed

(14)

T4

prescribed

(15)

T1

prescribed

(16)

The evaporation temperature is a function of the targeted

application (room air-conditioning, required storage temperature
for different materials, meal element conservation, ice-making,
etc.). In this study, T6 is specied, and the resulting cooling capacity Q_ evap is calculated.

T6

(17)

prescribed

Eqs. (6), (9) and (15) determine the higher pressure of the cycle,
while the lower pressure is determined by Eqs. (7), (10) and (17).
The isentropic efciency of the pump is set to one in this study
[8,23]. Other values were used in Refs. [3,5,13], the compression
was assumed to be isothermal in Ref. [29], but the most popular
assumption is that of negligible pump work [10,11,14e16,30,31]. As
will be discussed later in this paper, the pump efciency has little
effect on the performance of the machine.

hpump

h1 h2s
h1 h2

prescribed

(18)

Finally, the efciency of the solution heat exchanger is specied.

hSHEX

h7 h7p
h7 h2

prescribed

(19)

Some sources in the literature adopted a similar denition but

substituted the enthalpies for temperatures [3,10]. Different efciency values were used in the literature [1,3,13,29,32], the heat
exchanger pinch was specied in Refs. [2,5,14e16,23,31], the exit
temperature of the weak solution was specied in Ref. [8], while no
solution heat exchanger design information was evident in other
studies [4,9,11,30]. Quantifying the effect of the size and design of

276

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

the solution heat exchanger on the performance of the machine is

one of the objectives of this work.
In total, 57 equations are found for the 55 unknown variables
identied in Section 3, including 2 redundant mass conservation
equations. The problem is therefore properly dened, and a solution can be attempted.
4. Solution procedure
The sequence of the solution procedure is illustrated in Fig. 2,
and is briey described in the following. Considering the selection
of the input parameters (Eqs. (13)e(15), (17)) and knowing that the
vapour at the exit of the desorber is pure refrigerant (Eq. (5)) dene
variables T4 ; T6 ; T7 ; Q_ des and X3. Conservation of mass (Eqs. (1) and
(2)) implies that the composition of the working uid through the
condenser, refrigerant throttle valve and evaporator is known. The
assumption of saturation conditions at the exit of the condenser
and evaporator (Eqs. (9) and (10)) determines the pressure at these
two locations, and the corresponding enthalpies are calculated
using Eq. (4). The pressures at all the states of the cycle are obtained
using Eqs. (6) and (7). Mass and energy balances (Eqs. (1)e(3)) are
conducted over the refrigerant throttle valve to get enthalpy h5, and
Eq. (4) is used to calculate the temperature T5. The temperature and

pressure at the exit of the absorber are known (Eqs. (7) and (16)).
The refrigerant concentration and enthalpy at State 1 are calculated
using Eqs. (4) and (8). Mass and energy conservation, pump isentropic efciency and property correlation (Eqs. (1)e(4), (18)) allow
for the calculation of the enthalpy and temperature of the weak
solution downstream the pump. The pressure and concentration do
not change across the solution heat exchanger (Eqs. (1), (2) and (6)),
and determine the temperature and enthalpy of the refrigerant
vapour leaving the desorber (Eqs. (4) and (12)). The temperature
and pressure of the strong solution leaving the desorber are known
(Eqs. (6) and (14)), and the saturation hypothesis allows for the
determination of the composition and enthalpy (Eqs. (4) and (11)).
The mass ow rate and composition of the strong solution are
unchanged across the solution heat exchanger and throttle valve
(Eqs. (1) and (2)). Knowing the efciency of the solution heat
exchanger (Eq. (19)), heat exchanger exit properties h7p and T7p, as
well as the properties h8 and T8 downstream the throttle valve are
determined (Eqs. (1)e(4)). At this point, the three specic enthalpies (h2, h3 and h7p) and the composition of the working uid
(X2, X3 and X7p) at the boundaries of the desorber and solution heat
exchanger are known, as well as the total thermal energy transfer to
the desorber (Eq. (13)). Eqs. (1)e(3) are then written for the
desorber and solution heat exchanger, resulting in a linear matrix of

Step 1

Eqs. 5,13-15,17

X3, T4, T6, T7, Qdes

Step 2

Eqs. 1,2

X4, X5, X6

Step 3

Eqs. 4,9,10

P4, h4, P6, h6

Step 4

Eqs. 6,7

P1, P2, P2p, P3, P5, P7, P7p, P8

Step 5

Eqs. 1-4

h5, T5

Step 6

Eqs. 4,8,16

T1, X1, h1

Step 7

Eqs. 1-4,12,18

h2, T2, X2, X2p, T3, h3

Step 8

Eqs. 1,2,4,11

X7, h7, X7p, X8

Step 9

Eqs. 1-4,19

h7p, T7p, h8, T8

Step 10

Eqs. 1-3

m1, m2, m2p, m3, m4, m5, m6,

m7, m7p, m8

Step 11

Eqs. 1-4

h2p, T2p

Step 12

Eq. 3

Qcond, Qevap, Qabs, Wpump

Fig. 2. Schematic representation of solution procedure.

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

three equations, from which m2, m3 and m7p are calculated. The
total mass ow rates at all remaining states could then be derived
(Eq. (1)). The conditions of the weak solution at the exit of the
solution heat exchanger are then determined using mass and energy conservation equations and property correlation (Eqs. (1)e
(4)). Finally, the energy conservation is used again to calculate the
heat transfer rates at the condenser, evaporator and absorber, and
the power required to drive the pump. The analysis is completed
with the calculation of the COP of the machine, dened as the ratio
between the desired output, i.e. the cooling effect generated, and
the necessary input for the operation of the machine:

COP

Q_ des

Q_ evap
_ pump
W

(20)

It is noted that when waste heat (i.e. free energy) is used for the
desorption process, the COP can be dened by eliminating Q_ des
from the denominator [35]:

COPwaste

Q_ evap
_ pump
W

(21)

The maximum possible coefcient of performance is obtained

with a machine that would rst convert the primary thermal energy into electricity via a Carnot cycle, and then that electricity is
used to drive a reversible mechanical compression refrigeration
cycle [2,13,36].

_
W
elec
COPrev
Q_
des

!
Carnot

Q_ evap
_
W

elec

rev

T7 T4
T7



T6
T4 T6


(22)

The ratio between the rst law (Eq. (20)) and ideal (Eq. (22))
coefcients of performance denes the exergy or second law efciency of the cycle [2,4,13]:

ECOP

COP
COPrev

(23)

The solution procedure is completed with a verication of the

overall energy balance of the cycle:

_
_ pump  Q_
Q_ des Q_ evap W
cond  Q abs 0

(24)

4.1. Validation
The programming of the property correlations for the watere
LiBr solution and pure water vapour has been veried using the
validation cases provided in Refs. [33,34]. The maximum deviation
in the enthalpy values is less than 1% in all cases. The validation of
the cycle solution procedure has been performed using data taken
from the theoretical and experimental study by Florides et al. [8],
and is summarized in Table 1.
5. Performance evaluation
The solution procedure described in Section 4 is applied to
calculate the cooling generation capability of the watereLiBr absorption refrigeration cycle of Fig. 1. The default values of the independent input variables are listed in Table 2; the number of
degrees of freedom of the cycle is consistent with what was found
in previous work [1].
The heat source conditions in Table 2 can correspond to the heat
rejected to the atmosphere by a variety of industrial processes. In
fact, these values are consistent with measurements performed by
the present authors on a 50 kW CAT3126 diesel generator operated

277

Table 1
Validation.
Input parameters
T1 34.9  C
P4 9.66 kPa
Q_ des 14:2 kW

T3 85  C
T6 6  C
hSHEX 0.522

Results: This study

Q_ evap 10:0 kW
Q_ cond 10:69 kW
Q_ abs 13:51 kW
_ pump 0:29 W
W
COP 0.710

Results: [8]
Q_ evap 10:0 kW
Q_ cond 10:78 kW
Q_ abs 13:51 kW
_ pump 0:29 W
W
COP 0.704

T4 44.3  C
T7 90  C

at 1000 rpm. The selected default values for the condensation and
absorber exit temperatures are also consistent with typical ambient
temperatures. The selected evaporation temperature could be
correlated to a cooled medium at around 10  C. Using the values in
Table 2, the refrigeration cycle is calculated to generate the thermodynamic properties summarized in Table 3.
Table 3 allows for the verication of one of the main features of
the watereLiBr refrigeration machine operation: the machine
operates entirely under vacuum, which implies inltration prevention measures. It is also observed that the temperature of the
refrigerant as it exits the desorber (State 3) assumes a value that is
lower than that of the strong solution returned to the absorber
(State 7) and greater than that of the weak solution introduced into
the desorber (State 2p). Also note that the temperature at State 2p is
essentially the same as that upstream the pump, which is also
expected because of the isentropic pressurization assumption (Eq.
(18), Table 2). Using the data in Table 3, the energy transfer rates at
each of the components of the machine are calculated and summarized in Table 4.
The amount of thermal energy rejected to the environment
(condenser and absorber) is considerable, and may be of interest if
heating is a desired output [22e25]. In the present case, cooling is
the desired effect, and this analysis shows that up to 14.87 kW
cooling effect could be generated by the machine, corresponding to
a COP of 0.743. This value is signicantly lower than the COP of
conventional vapour compression refrigeration machines, which
was expected. It is also signicantly lower than the ideal COPrev
value of 2.09 (Eq. (22)), which suggests a signicant potential for
cycle design improvement.
The pump power consumption is calculated to be 0.05 W, which
is well within the margin of error in this study, and conrms that
the machine essentially operates out of the external heat source.
For the same reasons, using Eq. (21) to calculate the COP is
valueless.
In the following, the sensitivity of the performance of the absorption machine to variations of the selected input parameters is
discussed.

5.1. Effects of the available amount of thermal energy

The values in Table 2 are unchanged, except the thermal energy
input Q_ des which is varied in order to investigate its effect on the
Table 2
Default input parameters.
Q_ des (Eq. (13))
T7 (Eq. (14))
T4 (Eq. (15))
T1 (Eq. (16))
T6 (Eq. (17))
hpump (Eq. (18))
hSHEX (Eq. (19))

20 kW
100  C
30  C
30  C
5 C
100%
0%

278

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

Table 3
Solution of the watereLiBr base case refrigeration cycle.

16

Temperature
[ C]

Pressure
[kPa]

Refrigerant
mass fraction
[e]

Enthalpy
[kJ/kg]

Mass ow
rate [g/s]

1
2
2p
3
4
5
6
7
7p
8

30.0
30.0
30.0
58.4
30.0
5.00
5.00
100.0
100.0
e

0.873
4.247
4.247
4.247
4.247
0.873
0.873
4.247
4.247
0.873

0.47
0.47
0.47
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
0.29
0.29
0.29

66.605
66.607
66.607
2610.4
125.85
125.85
2510.3
301.26
301.26
301.26

23.87
23.87
23.87
6.236
6.236
6.236
6.236
17.63
17.63
17.63

12

Qevap [kW]

States

performance of the watereLiBr absorption machine (Fig. 1).

Consistently with the solution algorithm in Section 4, the temperatures, pressures, refrigerant mass fractions and specic enthalpies
at all ten points of the cycle are unaffected by the change in the
value of Q_ des . This also holds true for the cycle COP. However, the
working uid mass ow rates throughout the cycle, and the cooling
generation capability and all other energy transfer rates vary linearly with Q_ des .

60

80

100

120
o

Desorber exit temperature T7 [ C]

Fig. 3. Effect of the desorber temperature on the cooling generation capability.

Fig. 3 shows that the cooling generation capability initially increases very sharply, and then plateaus when the temperature of
the strong saturated solution leaving the desorber increases, with
all other operating parameters remaining constant (Table 2). The
lower end of the admissible T7 variation interval is determined by
the fact that the separation of the refrigerant in the desorber becomes increasingly difcult at low desorber temperatures. On the
other hand, the saturation condition (Eq. (11)) means that as T7
increases, the concentration of lithium bromide in the strong solution exiting the desorber increases, which increases the crystallization risks at the absorber. This phenomenon is well illustrated
on the Duhring chart of the watereLiBr cycle in Refs. [7e9,26,27].
No cooling generation capability is predicted outside the aforementioned admissible temperature variation range. The results in
Fig. 3 are consistent with other published results [10,11,13e16,29].
While in the presence of very high temperature heat sources, Hong
et al. [14,15] suggested maintaining the strong solution desorber
exit temperature at 110  C in order to prevent crystallization, Fig. 3
demonstrates that as moderate as 90  C heat source temperatures
are perfectly suitable for an efcient operation of a watereLiBr
absorption cooling machine.
Fig. 4 shows the effect of the desorber exit temperature on the
heat rejection at the condenser and absorber of the watereLiBr
absorption machine. The heat rejection at the absorber slightly
decreases and then remains constant. Over the entire T7 variation
range, Q_ abs varied by less than 3%, which implies that the absorber
cooling demand is essentially determined by the conditions of the
incoming refrigerant vapour and those prescribed of the weak solution leaving the component. The heat rejection at the condenser
Table 4
Energy transfer rates for the watereLiBr base case refrigeration cycle.
Desorber

Q_ des

20.00 kW

Condenser
Evaporator
Absorber
Pump
Cycle COP

Q_ cond
Q_ evap
Q_ abs
_ pump
W

15.50
14.87
19.38
0.000
0.743

kW
kW
kW
kW

is overall markedly smaller than that at the absorber, and sharply

increases at low desorber temperatures and then plateaus at high
T7 values. The total heat rejection by the machine is considerable,
and could be of interest in case of a demand for ambient heating for
example [22e25]. Over the considered desorber temperature
variation range, Q_ abs Q_ cond varies by approximately 65%.
Fig. 5 shows that the power required to drive the pump decreases sharply and asymptotically converges toward zero when
the heat source temperature increases. The absorber exit conditions
and pump isentropic efciency being constant (Eqs. (8), (16) and
(18) and Table 2), the decrease in the pump power consumption
could only be justied by a decrease in the circulated working uid
mass ow rate. Fig. 5 also shows that the power consumption by
the pump is several orders of magnitude smaller than all other

36

Qcond, Qabs, and Qcond + Qabs [kW]

5.2. Effects of the heat source temperature

30

24

18

12
Qcond
Qabs
Qcond + Qabs

60

80

100

120
o

Desorber exit temperature T7 [ C]

Fig. 4. Effect of the desorber temperature on the heat rejection by the absorption
machine.

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

0.0008

279

0.35

0.3
m1 (Weak solution)

0.0006

m7 (Strong solution)
m3 (Pure refrigerant)

m1, m3, and m7 [kg/s]

Wpump [kW]

0.25

0.0004

0.0002

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05
0

60

80

100

120
o

Desorber exit temperature T7 [ C]

0
60

energy transfer rates in this analysis, justifying the somewhat

common assumption of negligible pump work in the COP denition
[2,5,8,10,11,14e16,30]. As a consequence, the variation of the cooling effect with the heat source temperature in Fig. 3 essentially
corresponds to that of the COP of the machine. As seen in Fig. 6,
within the considered desorber temperature variation range, the
COP increases from 0.057 to 0.744, representing a 1200%
improvement. Also represented in Fig. 6 is the variation of the
maximum possible coefcient of performance of the machine (Eq.
(22)) with the desorber temperature. COPrev is seen to increase in a
quasi linear fashion, indicating a steady degradation of the second
law performance (Eq. (23)) of the actual machine with increasing
heat source temperatures, which is consistent with observations in
previous studies. More specically, Gomri [13] observed a rapid
increase of ECOP until a maximum is reached (ECOP 0.542 at

100

120

Desorber exit temperature T7 [ C]

Fig. 7. Effect of the heat source temperature on the working mass ow rates.

around T765  C in Fig. 6), followed by a gradual decrease as the

desorber temperature increased.
Fig. 7 illustrates the variations of the working uid mass ow
rate in the cycle as functions of the highest cycle temperature.
Unsurprisingly, the largest ow rate is that of the weak solution
circulated through the pump, but it is important to note that the
mass ow rate of the refrigerant leaving the desorber represents an
extremely small fraction of that of the incoming weak solution. At
_ 1 and m
_ 7 are in fact very close to one
low desorber temperatures, m
another, and they both decrease sharply as T7 increases. In the
_ 1 and m
_ 7 gradually increases,
meantime, the difference between m
which correlates with a signicant increase in the refrigerant mass

2.5

140

120

COP
COPrev

Circulation ratio f [-]

COP and COPrev [-]

80

Fig. 5. Effect of the desorber temperature on the power required to drive the pump.

1.5

100

80

60

40

0.5
20

60

80

100

120
o

Desorber exit temperature T7 [ C]

Fig. 6. Effect of the desorber temperature on the coefcient of performance.

60

80

100

120
o

Desorber exit temperature T7 [ C]

Fig. 8. Effect of the desorber exit temperature on the circulation ratio.

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

ow rate, and eventually explains the observed increase in the

cooling effect generated (Fig. 3).
It is customary to discuss the working uid mass ow rates in
terms of the circulation ratio [1,4,12,30,31], also often referred to as
ow ratio [9,10,32], and dened as the ratio between the mass ow
rate of the weak solution entering the desorber and that of refrigerant generated and sent to the evaporator:

_1
m
_3
m

(25)

The variation of the circulation ratio with increasing desorber

temperatures is given in Fig. 8, showing a substantial decrease as T7
increases. This indicates a substantial reduction of the physical
dimensions of the machine and pumping energy requirement per
unit cooling effect produced, and is consistent with observations by
previous authors for absorption cooling machines using other
working uid pairs [1,4,30].
The variations of the working uid composition across the cycle
with increasing desorber temperatures are presented in Fig. 9. The
refrigerant mass fraction in the weak solution at the exit of the
absorber is unaffected by T7 variations (Eqs. (8), (10), (16) and (17)).
However, the lithium-bromide concentration in the saturated
strong solution leaving the desorber increases with increasing
temperature, which is consistent with the waterelithium bromide
Duhring diagram [7]. The value assumed by X7 at the lowest temperature is equal to that of the refrigerant concentration in the
weak solution entering the desorber. Therefore, no refrigerant has
been separated in the desorber, and no cooling effect is generated
by the machine. On the other hand, the minimum value reached by
X7 at the highest admissible temperature is constrained by the
crystallization limits of the solution. Otherwise stated, this is the
minimum water content the strong solution needs to contain in
order to avoid crystallization at the absorber.
5.3. Effects of the evaporation temperature
The effect of the evaporator exit temperature on the performance of the watereLiBr absorption cooling machine is investigated in this section. For this purpose, unless otherwise stated, all

10

COP and COPrev [-]

280

COP
COPrev
6

10

15

20

25

30

Evaporator exit temperature T6 [ C]

Fig. 10. Effect of the evaporation temperature on the cooling generation capacity.

input variables assume their values indicated in Table 2, and the

temperature of the saturated refrigerant leaving the evaporator is
varied from 0  C to 30  C. In response, Fig. 10 shows that the COP of
the machine gradually increases as well, going from 0.709 to 1.00 at
the highest T6 value. This result is consistent with the experimental
observations by Sun [21]. Mortazavi et al. [22] also predicted a 16%
increase of the COP when the evaporation temperature was varied
from 9  C to 22  C which compares very well with the results in
Fig. 10. Because the input energy to the machine is constant at
20 kW and the pumping energy is small, the cooling generation
capability essentially increases proportionally to the COP (Eq. (20)).
On the other hand, when T6 approaches T4, the COP of the reversible
refrigeration machine becomes innitely large (Eq. (22)). The rapid
deterioration of the second law efciency (Eq. (23)) of the proposed

0.8

20

X1 and X7 [-]

0.6

Circulation ratio f [-]

X1 (Refrigerant in weak solution)

X7 (Refrigerant in strong solution)

0.4

0.2

T7 = 70oC
T7 = 85oC
T7 = 100oC

15

10

60

80

100

120
o

Desorber exit temperature T7 [ C]

Fig. 9. Effect of the heat source temperature on the composition of the strong solution.

10

20

30
o

Evaporator exit temperature T6 [ C]

Fig. 11. Effect of the evaporation temperature on the circulation ratio.

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

281

20

COP
COPrev

Circulation ratio f [-]

COP and COPrev [-]

T1 = T4 + 10oC
T1 = T4

15

T1 = T4 - 10 C

10

0
15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Condenser exit temperature T4 [ C]

Condenser exit temperature T4 [ C]

Fig. 12. Effect of the condensation temperature on the COP (T1 T4).

Fig. 14. Effect of the condenser and absorber temperature difference on the circulation
ratio.

absorption machine when the evaporation temperature increases is

in agreement with conclusions in other previous publications
[1,3,11], noting that in the case of an absorption heat pump, the
increase of the evaporator temperature has been reported to favour
both the rst and second law performances [11]. Fig. 10 carries an
important practical signicance: the cooling machine could
generate a large cooling load at high temperature, or a small cooling
load at low temperature. However, it should be noted that the
lowest value of the evaporation temperature in Fig. 10 is hardly
achievable in practice, except when anti-crystallization chemicals
are added to the working uid solution [26]. The higher end of the
evaporation temperature variation range is also only given for
illustration purposes.

0.8

0.6

When the evaporation temperature increases from 0  C to 30  C,

the heat rejection at the condenser varies from 14.90 kW to
20.00 kW, while the cooling duty of the absorber varies from
19.28 kW to 20.00 kW. As far as the pumping energy requirement is
concerned, it asymptotically converges to zero, consistent with the
fact that the top and bottom pressures of the machine are equal
when T6 T4 30  C. These variations are not presented in the
form of graphs for conciseness.
When the evaporation temperature is increased, the mass ow
_7
rates of both the weak and strong solutions decrease, with m
approaching zero when T6 approaches the prescribed condensation
temperature. The mass ow rate of the refrigerant is initially an
order of magnitude smaller, and increases by 38% in the considered
range of evaporation temperature variation, for a desorber exit
temperature maintained at 100  C. This number soars to 43% and
82% when the highest cycle temperature is maintained at 85  C and
70  C, respectively. The variations of the circulation ratio with the
evaporation temperature are illustrated in Fig. 11, conrming a
much more pronounced improvement of the absorption cooling
machine economics with increasing evaporator temperature when
the temperature at which the heat source is available is low (see
also Fig. 8).

COP [-]

5.4. Effects of the condensation and absorption temperatures

0.4

T1 = T4 + 10oC
T1 = T4
o
T1 = T4 - 10 C

0.2

0
15

0
15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Condenser exit temperature T4 [ C]

Fig. 13. Effect of the condenser and absorber temperature difference on the COP.

The effect of the condensation temperature on the performance

of the watereLiBr absorption cooling machine is investigated in
this section. Fig. 12 has been generated by maintaining all input
variables at their values given in Table 2, and simultaneously
varying both the condensation and absorber temperatures over
their entire admissible variation range. The gure shows that the
rst law COP decreases signicantly, dropping from 0.831 when
T4 17  C to 0.204 when T4 48  C. This decrease of COP with
increasing condensation temperature is consistent with the
experimental observations of Palacin et al. [19] and Sun [21], among
other authors. It is also noted that while the considered highest
condensation temperature in Fig. 12 may seem excessive, an
experimental prototype was reported to have been operated
trouble-free with an ambient temperature reaching 45  C [20]. Both

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

terms of Eq. (22) decrease with increasing T4, which explains the
parabolic decline of the reversible COP. Over most of the considered
condenser temperature range, the COPrev variation is much more
pronounced than that of COP, suggesting a rapid improvement in
the second law efciency of the machine with increasing condensation temperature. T4 45  C seems to correspond to a maximum
value for ECOP. Because the heat input to the machine is maintained
constant, the cooling generation capability varies in a similar
fashion as the COP. Not shown in Fig. 12 is that the heat rejection at
the condenser also gradually decreases by approximately the same
percentage as Q_ evap , while the variation of the heat rejection at the
absorber with the condenser and absorber temperatures is slim.
Finally, the pumping power requirement signicantly increases
with T1 and T4, and remains always several orders of magnitude
smaller than the heat transfer rates at the desorber, condenser,
absorber and evaporator.
Fig. 13 shows that the COP of the machine markedly decreases
when the temperature of the weak saturated solution exiting the
absorber is higher than that of the saturated refrigerant leaving the
condenser, and increases when the condensation temperature is
higher than the absorption temperature. This result is consistent
with the experimental observations by Eisa et al. [9] and the numerical predictions by Sun [32], noting that these are the only two
of the reviewed references to have studied the inuence of the
difference T1  T4 on the performance of the absorption cooling
machine. In fact, the majority of the reviewed articles adopted
T1 T4 [3,5,11,13e16,23,30,31], while T1 < T4 was adopted in
Refs. [8,10,12,20,29] and T1 > T4 was adopted in Refs. [1,4,17], often
without any justication.
The effect of the difference between the condenser and absorber
temperatures on the circulation ratio is illustrated in Fig. 14. As the
condensation temperature increases, both the weak and strong
solution ow rates increase, while the refrigerant mass ow rate
decreases. As a consequence, the circulation ratio drastically increases with the condensation temperature. The calculated results
also indicate that the circulation ratio is reduced by an average of
36% when the absorber exit temperature is 10  C lower than the
condenser exit temperature compared to the case where the two
temperatures are equal. On the other hand, the circulation ratio also
1

Refrigerant mass fraction [-]

X1 Weak solution (T1 = T4 + 10 C)

X1 Weak solution (T1 = T4)
X1 Weak solution (T1 = T4 - 10oC)
X7 Strong solution

0.8

0.8

0.6

COP [-]

282

T6 = 5oC
o

T6 = 10 C
o
T6 = 15 C

0.4

0.2

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Solution heat exchanger efficiency nSHEX [-]

Fig. 16. Effect of the solution heat exchanger efciency on the COP.

increases by approximately 52% when the weak watereLiBr solution leaves the absorber 10  C warmer than the temperature at
which the refrigerant leaves the condenser. The results in Fig. 14 are
consistent with those in Fig. 13, and further justify the operation of
the absorption machine at the smallest possible T1  T4 temperature difference.
The variation of the working uid composition throughout the
different components of the cycle with increasing condensation
temperatures is illustrated in Fig. 15. The driving temperature is
maintained at T7 100  C for all simulations, thus the refrigerant
mass fraction in the saturated strong solution at the exit of the
desorber is solely determined by the condensation temperature (or
pressure). This explains why only one X7 curve is given in Fig. 15,
and X7 is observed to gradually increase as T4 increases. On the
other hand, the concentration of the refrigerant in the weak solution at the exit of the absorber is observed to decrease as T4 increases. However, contrarily to X7, X1 is affected by the absorber
temperature, and the refrigerant content in the solution passing
through the pump becomes larger as the difference T1  T4 decreases. When X1 and X7 curves intersect, no refrigerant is separated in the desorber, and no cooling is generated at the evaporator.
Fig. 15 indicates that this intersection occurs at lower condenser
temperatures when T1 > T4, and it is delayed when T1 < T4.

0.6

5.5. Effects of the solution heat exchanger (SHEX)

0.4

0.2

0
15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Condenser exit temperature T4 [ C]

Fig. 15. Effect of the condensation temperature on the refrigerant mass fraction in the
working uid throughout the cycle.

The nal parametrical study consists of investigating the effect

of adding a solution heat exchanger that would recuperate part of
the thermal energy of the strong working uid solution exiting the
desorber in order to preheat the weak solution leaving the
absorber. The motivation here is to obtain an order of magnitude of
the benets of this approach in terms of the cooling capacity of the
machine, knowing however that this would imply a non-negligible
increase of the capital cost. By maintaining the external thermal
energy input, the desorption, condensation, evaporation and absorption temperatures constant, and increasing the size and/or
improving the design of the solution heat exchanger, Fig. 16 shows
that the COP increases in a quasi-linear fashion. It is noted that the
effect of the solution heat exchanger efciency has been previously
investigated for an ammoniaewater absorption machine [3],

J. Wonchala et al. / Energy 65 (2014) 272e284

predicting an increase of the COP with hSHEX. However, the shape of

COP vs. hSHEX curve calculated in Ref. [3] is different from those
shown in Fig. 16. In the present case, according to the solution
procedure in Fig. 2, the upgrading of the performance of the machine can only be explained by a quasi-linear increase of the
refrigerant mass ow rate. Fig. 16 shows maximum COP gains of
26%, 21% and 16% when the evaporation temperature is 5  C, 10  C
and 15  C, respectively. This also suggests that the addition of the
solution heat exchanger could be a means of mitigating performance losses when the machine is operated to generate low temperature cooling (Fig. 10). It is also worth noting that the results in
Fig. 16 could be applied to both the rst and second law performances of the machine, because the addition of the solution heat
exchanger does not affect COPrev (Eqs. (22) and (23)). Finally,
varying hSHEX is not seen to affect the circulation ratio.
6. Conclusions
The waterelithium bromide absorption cooling machine has
been theoretically investigated in this paper. The motivation for this
work was that previous work often omitted to mention and justify
their assumptions and operating conditions, and validation and
repeatability were not easy to achieve. In the present study, all
assumptions and operation parameters were clearly stated and
justied. A detailed solution algorithm was presented and validated. The performance of the machine was afterwards evaluated
based on the rst and second laws of thermodynamics and the
circulation ratio. For a given heat source temperature, the heat
duties of all cycle components increased linearly with increasing
amounts of primary heat source, and the coefcients of performance remained constant. When the desorber exit temperature
was varied from 58.5  C to 110  C (theoretical maximum variation
range), the heat rejection at the condenser and absorber increased
by 65% and the cooling capacity of the machine increased by as
much as 1200%, which translated in an equivalent increase of the
rst law coefcient of performance. However, the second law efciency initially improved, reached a maximum of about 54%, but
eventually dropped to only 32% at the highest heat source temperature. In the meantime, the circulation ratio, which is a measure
of the physical dimensions and therefore the cost of the absorption
cooling machine, improved extraordinarily. The rst law coefcient
of performance also increased by 41% and the competitiveness of
the cycle improved, while the second law efciency signicantly
deteriorated when the temperature of the refrigerated environment was varied over its theoretical admissible range. Conversely,
when both the condenser and absorber temperatures were simultaneously varied between 17  C and 48  C, the rst law performance dropped by 75% and the circulation ratio also degraded,
while the exergy efciency increased, starting at about 16% and
approaching a maximum value of 50% at 45  C condensation temperature. However, for a given condenser temperature, all three
considered performance criteria were improved when the absorber
temperature was lower than the condenser temperature, which
constitutes an interesting nding for design purposes. Finally, as
expected, the coefcient of performance of the machine was
observed to gradually increase when the design of the solution heat
exchanger was improved and/or its size was enlarged, the gain in
efciency being greater at low evaporator temperatures. The circulation ratio was not seen to be affected by the efciency of the
solution heat exchanger.
Acknowledgements
The nancial support of the National Science and Engineering
Research Council (NSERC) and that of the Royal Military College of

Canadas Academic
acknowledged.

283

Research

Program

(ARP)

is

gratefully

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