ZEOLITES DIRECT SYNTHESIS ON HEAT EXCHANGERS FOR ADSORPTION HEAT PUMPS

The improvement of adsorption heat pump performance has to involve researches on new adsorbent materials as well as on optimized design for adsorbers and heat exchangers. The breakthrough technology in the next future will be the one able to conjugate in an efficient way advanced adsorbents with advanced heat exchanger systems. It is still not solved the question about which one among the three possible configurations of the adsorbent material (i.e. granulates, bound coatings or directly grown coatings) would represent the best combination of thermodynamic and dynamic performance, mechanical stability and economic issues. It is aim of the present paper to analyze some aspects of the "direct synthesis" technique especially used in combination with zeolites as adsorbent materials. By treating the heat exchangers in the synthesis environment it is possible to induce the zeolitic phase accretion directly on their surfaces significantly improving the thermal contact. This technique, indeed, has demonstrated interesting possibilities correlated, however, with requirements and limitations strictly dependent on the physico-chemical/interaction between the different heat exchanger materials and the considered zeolitic system.