Effectiveness of cooling production with a combined power and cooling thermodynamic cycle

The combined production of power and cooling with an ammonia-water based cycle is under investigation. Cooling is produced by expanding an ammonia-rich vapor in an expander to sub-ambient temperatures and it is shown that a compromise exists between cooling and work production. A new parameter, termed the effective COP, is used to relate the gain in cooling to the compromise in work production. When the parameter is used to optimize conditions for the rectifier, the effective COP values are good, having values of up to 5. However, when combined operation is compared to work-optimized results, the maximum effective COP values are near 1.1. This implies that per unit of cooling production, nearly equal amounts of work are compromised for combined operation. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.