Experience in modelling of a single-stage silica gel-water adsorption chiller

Heat utilization for cooling capacity production is nowadays a desirable challenge in several industrial applications. There are lots of industrial processes with low parameters of heat generated as by-product, which utilization is very important to improve theirs total energy efficiency. Waste heat driven chillers seem to be great competitors for mechanical chillers. Among them special attention should be paid to adsorption chillers, since they can be powered with low – temperature heat sources. The paper presents a model of a single-stage adsorption chiller with silica gel as adsorbent and water, acting as a refrigerant. The performed model allows to predict the behaviour of the adsorption chiller, among others the main energy efficiency factors, such as coefficient of performance (COP) and cooling capacity (CC) for different working conditions.