Comparison of adsorption systems using natural gas fired fuel cell as heat source, for residential air conditioning

This article aims to evaluate the performances of an adsorption system driven thanks to the heat rejected by the post-combustion exhaust gases of a reformer/fuel cell system for residential air-conditioning application. Three adsorption pairs were compared: activated carbon/methanol, silica gel/water and zeolite/water. Taking into account both cooling power and sensitivity to performances of the heat rejection and recovery exchangers, it appears that zeolite 13X/water is the adsorption pair giving the best performance for this application. Nevertheless, a more detailed model would be of interest to better quantify the heat transfer impact on performance.