Comparison of different adsorption pairs based on zeotropic and azeotropic mixture refrigerants for solar adsorption ice maker

One of the important ways to the efficiently use of low-grade thermal energy is the adsorption refrigeration technology. However, it has some drawbacks such as low specific cooling power and coefficient of performance, especially under using the conventional adsorption pairs. Therefore, new adsorption pairs are tested in solar adsorption ice-maker and compared with other conventional pairs data from open literature to find the tendency of improving the solar adsorption ice-maker performance. The experimental test rig has been built in Upper Egypt in Qena City. Four different new adsorption pairs of granular activated carbon/R-410A, granular activated carbon/R-511A, Maxsorb III/R-410A, and Maxsorb III/R-511A are used. It is demonstrated that Maxsorb III/R-511A pair based solar adsorption ice-maker produced the highest values for specific cooling power, coefficient of performance, and ice production per 1 kg of adsorbent of approximately 226.7 W/kgads, 0.197, and 1.96 kg/kgads, respectively. While granular activated carbon/R-410A based solar adsorption ice-maker produced the lowest values of ice production per 1 kg of adsorbent and coefficient of performance of 1.38 kg/kgads and 0.104, respectively. Moreover, it can be concluded that the tested pairs are feasible to be used in solar adsorption ice-maker systems, especially in such hot climate of Upper Egypt for food and vaccine preservation and storage.