Development of a suction-pump-assisted thermal and electrical hybrid adsorption heat pump

In Japan, a tremendous amount of heat energy below 373 K is discharged into the atmosphere as waste heat, accounting for approximately 80% of the heat loss. The widespread utilization of such low-temperature heat energy leads to the establishment of a highly efficient energy utilization system. A closed adsorption heat pump (adsorption heat pump) is desirable for achieving the above mentioned system because it can generate cooling power below 283 K for air conditioning by utilizing the low-temperature heat energy as the regeneration heat source of the adsorbent. However, the cooling power and coefficient of performance of the conventional thermally operated adsorption heat pump significantly decrease with the regeneration temperature. We have proposed a suction-pump-assisted thermal and electrical hybrid adsorption heat pump. In this pump, a mechanical booster pump (MBP) is incorporated into the thermally operated silica gel-water-type adsorption heat pump for promoting water vapor transportation between an adsorber and an evaporator/condenser. We have experimentally studied the effect of the MBP power on the heat output performance of the adsorption heat pump. It has been demonstrated that the proposed pump can achieve a heat output performance 1.6 times that of the thermally operated adsorption heat pump. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.