The Effect of Nozzle Configuration on Adsorption-Chiller Performance

Broadly defined climate protection is a powerful incentive in the search for environmentally friendly refrigeration technologies. Adsorption chillers are considered to be one such technology; however, their main disadvantages include a low cooling capacity, a low energy efficiency ratio (EER), and cyclic operation. Thus, a great deal of effort is being put into improving adsorption-chiller performance. In this paper, the influence of the spray angle, the number of nozzles, and the water flow rate through the nozzles on adsorption-chiller performance was investigated. Adsorption-chiller performance was investigated mainly in terms of the cooling capacity (CC), the energy efficiency ratio (EER), and the specific cooling power (SCP). The results indicated that the chiller's cooling capacity increased from about 210 W to 316 W and that the EER increased from 0.110 to 0.167 when the spray angle of the nozzles was increased from 90 degrees to 120 degrees. It was also reported that increasing the flow rate of water through the nozzles did not improve the average cooling capacity or the other performance parameters but resulted in more stable operation of the chiller. Additionally, using six nozzles instead of three improved the average cooling capacity and EER tenfold.