Abstract:

In order to balance the supply and demand of energy spatially and temporally, and to enhance efficiency of energy utilization, this work presents a novel chemisorption cold storage device driven by low grade thermal energy.This device employed MnCl₂/NH₄Cl as working pair, which were individually mixed with expanded graphite as compound sorbents, and ammonia as refrigerant.Experiments were conducted under different ambient temperature ranging from 20℃ to 35℃, thus the cooling capacity was obtained by measuring the mass of the ice transformed from water and was calculated as 475 kJ·kg^-1 of NH4Cl salt during 3 hours’ operation, however, the effective cooling production accounted for 25%—42%.The average specific cooling power was 43 W·kg^-1 of NH₄Cl salt.This device achieved two refrigeration temperature levels: -1—6℃ and -16—14.5℃ respectively for two relative independent zoons inside the device.Reducing the metallic components,enhancing the transfer properties and insulation performance of the device are the key subjects of further optimization work.