Effects of particle diameter on performance improvement of adsorption systems

The adsorbent particle diameter is an influential parameter in the performance of an adsorption chiller since it affects both inter- and intra-particle mass transfer resistances. In this analysis, a plate finned-tube heat exchanger is considered with SWS-1L (CaCl2 in mesoporous silica gel) and water as the working pair to investigate the particle diameter effects on the performance parameters of an adsorption system. As the effects of inter- and intra-particle mass transfer resistances are opposing, the optimum bed performance is expected to occur at a specific particle diameter. Furthermore, effects of fin height, fin spacing and cooling/heating temperatures of thermal fluid on the optimum particle diameter are examined in details. It has been found that the optimum performance for all fin configurations and thermal fluid inlet temperature variations, considered in the present study, is obtained for the particle sizes in the range of 0.2–0.3 mm.