Literature review on solar adsorption technologies for ice-making and air-conditioning purposes and recent developments in solar technology

The primary objective of this review is to provide fundamental understandin gs of the solar adsorption systems and to give useful guidelines regarding designs parameters of adsorbent bed reactors,and the applicability of solar adsorption both in air-conditioning and refrigeration with the improvement of the coefficient of performance. Solar adsorption heat pump and refriger ation devices are of significance to meet the needs for cooling requirement s such as air-conditioning and ice-making and medical or food preservation in remote areas. They are also noiseless, non-corrosive and environmentally friendly. For these reasons the research activities in this sector are sti ll increasing to solve the crucial points that make these systems not yet r eady to compete with the well-known vapor compression system. There is an i ncreasing interest in the development and use of adsorption chillers due to their various economic and impressive environmental benefits, enabling sol ar energy or waste heat to be used for applications such as district networ ks and cogeneration plants. Compared to adsorption systems that require hea t sources with temperatures above 100 degreesC (zeolite-water systems, acti vated carbon-methanol systems) or conventional compressor chillers, a silic a gel/water adsorption refrigerator uses waste heat with temperature below 100 degreesC. This creates new possibilities for utilizing low temperature energy. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.