international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 14071413

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Experimental investigation on activated carbonethanol

pair for solar powered adsorption cooling applications
I.I. El-Sharkawya,b, B.B. Sahaa,*, S. Koyamaa, J. Hec, K.C. Ngc, C. Yapc
a

Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Engineering Sciences, Kyushu University, Kasuga-koen 6-1, Kasuga-shi, Fukuoka 816-8580, Japan
Mechanical Power Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, El-Mansoura, Egypt
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260
b

article info

abstract

Article history:

Adsorption equilibrium uptake of ethanol onto a highly porous activated carbon based

Received 28 December 2007

adsorbent, namely Maxsorb III, has been experimentally investigated using a thermo-

Received in revised form

gravimetric analyzer (TGA) unit over adsorption temperatures ranging from 20 to 60  C.

3 March 2008

The DubininAstakhov (DA) equation has been used to correlate the experimental data.

Accepted 29 March 2008

Isosteric heat of adsorption is also estimated by using the ClausiusClapeyron equation.

Published online 8 April 2008

Employing a thermodynamically equilibrium model, the performance of the ideal adsorption cooling cycle has also been studied and compared to that of activated carbon fiber

Keywords:

(ACF)ethanol pair. Experimental results show that Maxsorb III can adsorb up to 1.2 kg of

Cooling

ethanol per kilogram of adsorbent. Theoretical calculations show that, the Maxsorb IIIeth-

Adsorption system

anol adsorption cycle can achieve a specific cooling effect of about 420 kJ kg1 at an evap-

Activated carbon

orator temperature of 7  C along with a heat source of temperature 80  C and thus the pair

Ethanol

is recommended for solar cooling applications.

Heating

2008 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.

Solar energy
Experiment
Modelling
Simulation
Performance

Etude experimentale sur le couple charbon actif-ethanol pour

les applications de refroidissement a` adsorption solaire
Mots cles : Refrigeration ; Syste`me a` adsorption ; Charbon actif ; Ethanol ; Chauffage ; Energie solaire ; Experimentation ; Modelisation ;
Simulation ; Performance

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 81 92 583 7832; fax: 81 92 583 7833.

E-mail address: bidyutb@cm.kyushu-u.ac.jp (B.B. Saha).
0140-7007/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2008.03.012

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international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 14071413

Nomenclature
COP
Cp
E
LH
n
P
Ps
Q
T
qst
R
SCE
W
W0

1.

Coefficient of performance ()
Specific heat capacity (kJ kg1 K1)
Adsorption characteristic parameter in Eq. (1)
Latent heat (kJ kg1)
Exponent parameter of (DA) equation
Pressure (kPa)
Saturation pressure (kPa)
Energy (kJ)
Temperature (K)
Isosteric heat of adsorption (kJ kg1)
Gas constant (kJ kg1 K1)
Specific cooling effect (kJ kg1)
Equilibrium uptake (kg kg1)
Maximum equilibrium uptake (kg kg1)

Introduction

Thermally driven adsorption cooling and heat pump systems

have gained considerable attention because, (i) they could utilize low temperature waste heat or renewable energy sources
and (ii) the adsorption cycle is suitable to employ waste heat at
low temperatures, reducing the effects of global warming. In
addition, the adsorption cycle has minimal moving parts,
free of noise and low maintenance cost. Hitherto, many studies have investigated the performance of adsorption cooling
cycle employing various adsorbentrefrigerant pairs. Sakoda
and Suzuki (1984) proposed a transient simulation model of
a solar powered adsorption cooling cycle using silica gel
water as adsorbentrefrigerant pair. Silica gelwater based adsorption cooling system has been analyzed experimentally by
Boelman et al. (1995) and analytically by Saha et al. (1995).
Multi-stage adsorption cooling cycles have also been developed and analyzed employing the same pair by Saha et al.
(1997, 2003). Zeolitewater pair is used for solar adsorption
cooling and air conditioning applications (Tatler and ErdemImageenatalar, 1999; Wang et al., 2006). The former system
can be powered by heat source of temperature below 100  C,
while the latter required heat source of temperature above
100  C. Pons and Guilleminot (1986) have experimentally investigated the performance of an activated carbonmethanol
adsorption system for ice production by using renewable energy. Meunier (1989) proposed and analyzed a cascading adsorption cycle in which an activated carbonmethanol cycle
is topped by zeolitewater cycle. Activated carbonammonia
pair has also been widely used in adsorption cooling and
heat pump systems (Critoph, 1994, 1998; Miles and Shelton,
1996). Kanamori et al. (1997) proposed activated carbon
ethanol adsorption heat pump with a disk-module type
adsorber for refrigeration applications. Experimental results
show that the proposed adsorption heat pump could be driven
with a regeneration temperature of about 350 K to produce
cooling energy at a temperature of about 260 K. An experimental study on activated carbonmethanol and activated
carbonethanol for solar ice maker applications has been

Subscripts
ad
Adsorbent
ads
Adsorption
c
Condenser
des
Desorption
e
Evaporator
h
Heat added
latent
Latent heat
max
Maximum
min
Minimum
ref
Refrigerant
sens
Sensible heat

conducted by Li et al. (2004). The study shows the superiority

of the former pair for solar ice maker applications. El-Sharkawy et al. (2006a, b) has been experimentally investigated
the adsorption characteristics of activated carbon fiber
(ACF)ethanol pair for adsorption cooling applications and
the transient model of a two bed ACFethanol adsorption
chiller has also been theoretically investigated (Saha et al.,
2007a, b). Other studies presented the achievements gained
in the sorption refrigeration technology and summarized the
environmentally benign adsorbentadsorbate pairs which
could be used in adsorption refrigeration (Wang and Oliveira,
2006; Wang et al., 2008; Cui et al., 2005). Even though various
adsorption cooling systems have been proposed and developed, however, for widespread dissemination of such system
the enhancement of system performance is inevitable. To
improve the system performance, it is essential to determine
accurately the adsorption characteristics and kinetics of the
adsorbentadsorbate pair.
The motivation of this study deals with the adsorption
characteristics of an environmental friendly refrigerant
namely ethanol onto a highly porous activated carbon such
as the Maxsorb III. The high adsorption capacity of the Maxsorb IIIethanol pair makes it possible to use as the working
pair in adsorption cooling systems. The cycle performance is
also studied from the thermodynamic viewpoint.

2.

Materials

The adsorbent employed in the present study is Maxsorb III

and is developed by the Kansai Coke & Chemicals Co., Ltd., Japan. The porous properties of Maxsorb III were measured by
using N2 adsorption isotherm at a temperature of 77.4 K
(Saha et al., 2008a). It is found that Maxsorb III possesses a surface area as high as 3200 m2 g1 and mean pore diameter
2 nm. Fig. 1(a) shows the breakthrough curves for Maxsorb
III whilst the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) image
of the assorted adsorbent is shown in Fig. 1(b). It can be seen
from Fig. 1(a) that the adsorptiondesorption processes for

1409

international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 14071413

1400
(8)
1200

(6)

(4)

1000

Vads/des [cm3/g]

(6)

(7)

T
800

(5)

600
400

(7)

(7)

Adsorption

200

Desorption

(1)

(2)

(3)

0
0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.2

Relative Pressure P/Ps

Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of the experimental set up.
(1) Evaporator; (2) Constant temperature water bath; (3) Water
circulator; (4) TGA reacting chamber; (5) Helium cylinder;
(6) Pressure regulator; (7) Valve; (8) To the vacuum pump.

Fig. 1 (a). Adsorptiondesorption isotherm of N2 on

Maxsorb III at 77.4 K. (b) Transmission electron microscopy
(TEM) image of Maxsorb III.

Maxsorb III are completely reversible i.e., they do not have any
hysteresis. Ethanol with a purity of 99.9% is used as
refrigerant.

is fully degasified. The adsorbent sample of 89.3 mg is then

placed into the TGA reacting chamber. The experimental procedure can be explained as follows: the evaporator temperature is kept constant at 15  C by using the constant
temperature water bath. The sample is then regenerated at
120  C under vacuum conditions for several hours. After
that, the system is cooled down to the desired adsorption temperature. Adsorption process starts by opening the valve connecting the evaporator and the TGA reacting chamber.
Ethanol vapor penetrates to the TGA reacting chamber then
and comes in direct contact with the Maxsorb III sample.
The weight of the adsorbent sample is logged within a time interval of 0.51 s until it reaches the uptake at equilibrium. Experiments have been conducted between 20 and 60  C with
a temperature increment of 10  C. Detail description of the experimental set up and procedure has been reported in earlier
publications (El-Sharkawy et al., 2006b; Saha et al., 2006a).

4.
3.

Experiments

Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram of the experimental apparatus which consists of: (i) a TGA unit of type Chan-2121 with
an accuracy of 0.1 mg, (ii) a constant temperature water bath,
(iii) a built-in microprocessor for pressure and temperature
controls and a compact vortex chiller system that enables
the TGA unit to conduct isotherm measurements below the
ambient temperature, and (iv) an electric tape heater that is
mounted at the external surface of the tube connecting the
evaporator and the TGA reacting chamber. The experimental
set up is equipped with K type thermocouples and MKS-Baratron pressure sensor for measuring temperature and pressure,
respectively.
Before conducting the experiments, the adsorbent (Maxsorb III) is placed into a moisture analyzer and heated up at
a temperature of 140  C for several hours until the adsorbent

Results and discussion

The DubininAstakhov (DA) equation is widely used to estimate the equilibrium uptake of gases and vapors onto carbon
based adsorbents. In the present study, the DA equation Eq.
(1) is used to fit the measured adsorption uptake for the Maxsorb IIIethanol pair:
  n 
A
(1)
W W0 exp 
E
In Eq. (1), W is the equilibrium uptake of the adsorbent
refrigerant pair, W0 defines the maximum adsorption capacity
and E is the adsorption characteristic parameter of the adsorbentadsorbate pair, which can be evaluated experimentally.
The exponential parameter n is a dimensionless parameter
that gives the best fitting of ln(W ) versus An and A is the
adsorption potential that is given by Eq. (2):
 
Ps
(2)
A RT ln
P

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international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 14071413

Table 1 Experimental and predicted adsorption uptake

of Maxsorb IIIethanol pair
Adsorption
temperature
( C)

Experimental
equilibrium
uptake
(kg kg1)

Predicted
equilibrium
uptake using
(DA) equation
(kg kg1)

% of
Deviation
(%)

1.001
0.891
0.770
0.483
0.314
0.182

1.012
0.890
0.761
0.516
0.319
0.181

1.11
0.10
1.13
6.71
1.40
0.49

20
25
30
40
50
60

where T is the adsorption temperature, Ps stands for the refrigerant saturation pressure and P defines the equilibrium
pressure. It is found that n equals 1.75 provides the best fitting
of the experimental data, which yields W0 and E as 1.2 kg kg1
and 5538 J mole1, respectively. The experimentally measured adsorption capacity values and those estimated by using the (DA) equation are listed in Table 1, whilst the
adsorption isotherms of the adsorbentadsorbate pair are
shown in Fig. 3. By super-imposing an ideal adsorption cooling cycle of the Maxsorb IIIethanol pair, as shown in Fig. 3,
the ideal cycle is thermally driven at a heat source temperature of 80  C along with a heat sink at temperature 30  C,
and the evaporator temperature is assumed at 7  C. The corresponding concentration ranges at the end of desorption
and at the end of adsorption in the cycle varies, respectively,
between 0.29 and 0.78 kg kg1.
The thermodynamic relation between equilibrium pressures, adsorption temperature and equilibrium uptake of the
adsorbentadsorbate pair can be provided by the so called
PTW (pressuretemperatureconcentration) diagram, which
provides a simple prediction of the performance of the ideal
adsorption cooling cycle. The PTW diagram of Maxsorb
IIIethanol pair is shown in Fig. 4(a), where the DA equation
is used to generate the isosters. The ideal cycle for the same
adsorbentrefrigerant pair is super-imposed in the same figure. For comparison, the PTW diagram of another carbon
based adsorbent namely ACF of type (A-20) and ethanol pair

Temperature,C

1.2

30

20

Uptake [kg kg-1]

Thermodynamic modelling

The basic adsorption cooling cycle consists of four batchoperated thermodynamic processes and they are: (i) pre-cooling process, (ii) adsorption process, (iii) pre-heating process,
and (iv) desorption process. Referring to Fig. 4(a), Pc and Pe
are the condenser and the evaporator pressures, Tc and Te
are the condenser and the evaporator temperatures, respectively. The subscripts 1, 2, 3 and 4 indicated on the rectangular
cycle refer to the states of processes 12, 23, 34 and 41, respectively. The ideal model described here shows the heat and
mass transfer contributions on the PTW diagram where the
cycle is considered as time independent and the specific cooling effect (SCE) can be defined as:


Z Tc
Cpref dT
(3)
SCE Wmax  Wmin LHTe 
Te

60

1
4

5.

40
50

0.8

is shown in Fig. 4(b) and the ideal adsorption cooling cycle is

also superimposed therein. It is noticed that by employing
a heat source of temperature 80  C and a coolant of temperature 30  C, the concentration limits of ACF (A-20)ethanol cycle are between 0.24 and 0.58 kg kg1. It is evident from
Fig. 4(a) and (b) that the concentration range for Maxsorb
IIIethanol pair is about 44% higher than that of the ACF (A20)ethanol pair, demonstrating the superiority of Maxsorb
IIIethanol pair for cooling applications. In addition to concentration uptake, the adsorption kinetics is another essential
factor that should also be considered during comparison between two different adsorbentrefrigerant pairs. Fig. 5 shows
the change of fractional uptake versus time of the Maxsorb
IIIethanol pair and that of ACF (A-20)ethanol pair at a constant adsorption temperature of 30  C. It can be seen that
the adsorption rate of ACFethanol pair is much faster than
that of Maxsorb IIIethanol pair due to the short diffusion
path of ACF particles compared to that of granular shapes adsorbents. This implies that activated carbon fiber might be
suitable for waste heat powered adsorption cooling application where short adsorptiondesorption cycle time of around
510 min is anticipated. On the contrary, Maxsorb IIIethanol
pair seems to be suitable for solar adsorption cooling application where a relatively longer adsorptiondesorption cycle
time is anticipated.

where Wmax and Wmin are the maximum and minimum adsorption uptakes, respectively. The coefficient of performance
(COP) of the adsorption cycle can be defined as:
SCE
Qh

70

COP

0.6

80

0.4

90

In Eq. (4), the heat added, Qh, is the summation of sensible

and latent heats and can be expressed as:
Qh Qsens QLatent

2
0.2
0

(4)

(5)

where,
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

Qsens

T1
T3

Cpad dT Wmax

T4

T3

Cpref dT

T1
T4

W Cpref dT

(6)

Pressure [kPa]
Fig. 3 Adsorption isotherms of Maxsorb IIIethanol pair
as predicted by using the (DA) equation.

and QLatent qst

Wmin

dW
Wmax

(7)

1411

international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 14071413

1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2

1000

ratio

Qc

Pc

Satu

P [mbar]

Desorption

100

Pre-cooling

Pe
3

Qe

0.01

Adsorption

ion

at
entr

Con

10

Te
1

0.1

Pre-heating

Tc

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Temperature [C]

0.9
0.8

30

20

Temperature,C
50

40

0.7

60

W [kg/kg]

0.6

4
70

0.5
80

0.4
0.3

90

1000

0.2

0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3

0.1
0

10

12

14

16

18

20

Pressure [kPa]
Qc

Pc

ratio

Satu

0.2
4

100

0.1

P [mbar]

0.05
Pe
on

Te

10

ati
entr

Con

Qe

10

0.01

Tc

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Temperature[C]
Fig. 4 (a) The (PTW ) diagram of the Maxsorb IIIethanol pair. (b) The (PTW ) diagram of the ACF (A-20)ethanol pair
(El-Sharkawy et al., 2006a).

The first term in Eq. (6) represents the sensible heat added to
unit mass of adsorbent so that its temperature increases from
T3 to T1 whilst the second and the third terms are the sensible
heat added to the refrigerant per kilogram of adsorbent during
the pre-heating and the desorption processes, respectively.
Eq. (7) gives the latent heat of the adsorption cooling cycle
where qst is estimated by using the CelsiusClapeyron which
is shown in Eq. (8). The average value of the isosteric heat of

adsorption for the Maxsorb IIIethanol pair is found to be

1026 kJ kg1.
qstW

Rvln P

v T1

(8)

Fig. 6 shows the change of specific cooling effect (SCE) with

the desorption temperature at three evaporator temperatures,
namely 15, 7 and 3  C. It can be seen that the SCE increases

1412

international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 14071413

1.1

0.9

0.8
0.7

0.8
0.7

0.6

0.6

COP [-]

Fractional Uptake [-]

0.9

0.5
0.4
0.3

0.4
0.3

0.2

ACF (A-20)-Ethanol Pair

0.1

Maxsorb III-Ethanol Pair

0.5

Evaporator Temperature
3C
7C
15C

0.2
0.1

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

0
45

Time [s]

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

Desorption Temperature [C]

Fig. 5 Fractional uptake versus time for Maxsorb III

ethanol and ACF (A-20)ethanol pairs.

Fig. 7 Effect of the desorption temperature on the COP.

linearly with the increase of desorption temperature due to

the increases of concentration difference (WmaxWmin)
through the cycle. Fig. 7 shows the effect of desorption temperature on the coefficient of performance (COP). It can be noticed that the COP increases sharply with the increase of
desorption temperature below 80  C. However, the increase
in COP after the desorption temperature of 80  C is marginal
even though the SCE increases (see Fig. 6). This happens due
to the fact that the requirement of heat input becomes significantly large when the temperature difference between heat
source and heat sink become higher than 50 K.
It is also worthy to note that, for a fixed temperature of
both condenser and adsorption at 30  C, the minimum required desorption temperatures are at 61, 56 and 46  C corresponding to the evaporator temperatures of 3, 7 and 15  C,
respectively. This finding agrees with the previous work
(Saha et al., 2006b) where the authors proposed a correlation
to determine the lowest required heat source temperature at
which the adsorption cooling cycle can be operated. The proposed relation is given by Eq. (9). It is noticed that there is
a good agreement between the minimum desorption temperatures of an ideal cycle where there is no SCE (see Fig. 6) and

such minimum temperatures are predicted by a simple expression that is shown below:
Tdes

T2ads
Te

(9)

where Tdes and Tads are the desorption and adsorption temperatures indicated on a PTW diagram, respectively.
For the sake of comparison, the change of SCE with regeneration temperatures for five different adsorbentadsorbate
pairs has been shown in Fig. 8. The assorted pairs are Maxsorb IIIethanol, ACF (A-20)ethanol, silica gelwater and
two types of activated carbonmethanol pairs namely,
LHmethanol and AC-35methanol. The evaporator temperature is kept constant at 7  C which is the standard delivered
chilled water temperature in Japan. The SCE of ACF (A-20)
ethanol and silica gelwater pairs has been estimated elsewhere (Saha et al., 2008b). As for the LHmethanol and AC35methanol pairs, the (DA) equation is used to estimate
the adsorption uptake and Eq. (3) is used to evaluate the
SCE. Adsorption parameters of (DA) equation for both adsorbentadsorbate pairs have been experimentally evaluated by
Passos et al. (1986). As can be seen from Fig. 8, the SCE of
Maxsorb IIIethanol pair provides the highest value among
the five assorted pairs.

800
700

600
500

500

SCE [kJ/kg]

SCE [kJ kg-1]

600

Evaporator Temperature
3C
7C
15C

400
300

400
300
200

200
Minimum desorption
temperatures

100
0
45

MaxsorbIII-Ethanol [Present Work]

ACF(A-20)-Ethanol [25]
Silica gel-Water [25]
LH-Methanol [26]
AC35-Methanol [26]

50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

Desorption Temperature [C]

Fig. 6 Effect of the desorption temperature on specific
cooling effect.

100

100

0
55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

Regeneration Temperature [C]

Fig. 8 Effect of desorption temperature on specific cooling
effect for five different adsorbentadsorbate pairs.

international journal of refrigeration 31 (2008) 14071413

6.

Conclusions

Adsorption equilibrium uptake of Maxsorb IIIethanol pair

has been measured by using a thermo-gravimetric analyzer
(TGA) under a controlled temperature and pressure environment. Experimental results show that the assorted adsorbent
(Maxsorb III) can adsorb up to 1.2 kg of ethanol per kg of adsorbent. The DubininAstakhov (DA) equation is used to fit the
experimental data of equilibrium uptake and PTW diagram
of Maxsorb IIIethanol pair is also plotted. The thermodynamic analysis of Maxsorb IIIethanol based adsorption cooling cycle shows that, the cycle can achieve a specific cooling
effect as high as 420 kJ kg1 at the evaporator temperature of
7  C in combination with heat source and heat sink of temperatures 80 and 30  C, respectively. Owing to the high adsorption
uptake of ethanol onto Maxsorb III and low regeneration temperature of the pair which is below 100  C, the proposed pair
seems to be attractive for solar adsorption cooling application.

Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (MEXT), Japan,
Science and Technology Project, Project No. 18560205.

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