Adsorption Cooling-energy Conversion with Encapsulated Sorbents (ACCESS)

制冷能源是现代社会各种制冷和空调过程的重要基础。目前，制冷消耗了英国高达14%的电力，每年的成本超过50亿GB。因此，只有利用太阳能或低品位余热来替代电力来产生冷能，才能导致可持续的冷却方式。然而，目前的吸附制冷技术和吸附制冷技术由于其复杂性和低效率都不适合在国内应用，本项目将通过封装液体吸附剂来开发一种新的吸附方法，它结合了吸收过程和吸附过程的优点。这种被包裹的吸附剂不仅提供了更高的吸附量，而且还提供了更高的吸附速率，这使得吸附制冷系统更加紧凑和高效，适合国内应用。该项目将解决这种新的吸附制冷技术所面临的不同程度的科学和技术挑战。在材料层面，将开发一种两步微胶囊化-包覆法来生产微囊化的脱硫剂。在装置层面，我们将从数值和实验两个方面研究基于包覆型吸附剂的吸附床的吸附/解吸动力学，以实现最优设计。在系统一级，将开发一种先进的系统，其中包括微囊化的脱硫剂和相关的吸附床。还将构建实验室规模的集成系统，以调查和演示其在国内应用的性能。

Cooling energy is a vital foundation of modern society for refrigeration and air conditioning processes of various kinds. Currently cooling consumes up to 14% of the UK's electricity, with an annual cost of more than £5 billion. Therefore only the use of solar thermal energy or low-grade waste heat instead of electricity to generate cold can lead to a sustainable way of cooling. However both present absorption refrigeration and adsorption refrigeration technologies are unsuitable for domestic application due to their complexity and inefficiency.This project will develop a new adsorption approach that combines the advantages of absorption processes and adsorption processes by encapsulating the liquid sorbents. The encapsulated sorbents offer not only a much higher sorption quantity but also a much higher sorption rate, which in combination enables the adsorption refrigeration system to be more compact and efficient for domestic applications.This project will address different levels of the scientific and technological challenges of such a new adsorption cooling technology. At a material level a two-step microencapsulation-coating approach will be developed to produce encapsulated sorbents. At the device level, the adsorption/desorption dynamics of a sorption bed based on encapsulated sorbents will be investigated both numerically and experimentally to achieve optimal designs. At a system level, an advanced system will be developed with encapsulated sorbents and related sorption beds. A lab-scale integrated system will also be constructed to investigate and demonstrate its performance for domestic applications.