Measurement of thermal conductivity of silica gel and composite adsorbent by using transient plane source technique

Thermal conductivity (TC) of the adsorbent adopted in adsorption refrigeration systems was measured by transient plane source technique. The studied adsorbent contains: Silica gel, silica gel-water, silica gel-calcium chloride composite adsorbent and solidified silica gel-calcium chloride-expanded graphite composite adsorbent. The results show that the TC of silica gel, which is greatly influenced by the porosity, is increased linearly with the increase of water uptake; the TC of silica gel-CaCl2 composite adsorbent is increased obviously when the mass ratio of CaCl2 is larger than 0.2; the TC of solidified composite adsorbent is about 2.942 W/mK, which is 30 times larger than that of silica gel.