Honey, I shrunk the sorption Lab - Model-based scale-up of adsorption systems

Abstract

Performance assessment and development of adsorption chillers typically requires large-scale experiments of whole adsorption chiller setups. In this work, we present a model-based approach to drastically reduce the required lab space and time. A workflow is illustrated that starts with asimple kinetic experimentwith a small adsorbent sampleto determine heat and mass transfer coefficients of a packed-bed adsorbent. Thesecoefficients are usedin adynamicmodel to predict the SCP and COPof a full-size adsorption chiller. We show that the resulting model is able to predict the performance close to the measurement accuracy.With our approach, we thus can scale-up adsorption systems from milligram adsorbent samples to real machines with kilograms of adsorbent material. The underlying models for performance evaluation and development of adsorption machines are based on our freely available Modelica library SorpLib. The SorpLib library provides opportunities for the broad model-based development and optimization of adsorption systemsand their control.