The first residual heat-driven cooling system is up and working at Fiat in Turin. This is a breakthrough in small-scale cooling systems that do not use harmful coolants (HCFCs) and do not have a compressor, making them noise-free. In brief, environment-friendly and energy-efficient.
The focus of the European SOCOOL (Solid Sorption System for Cooling in Tri-generation) project of the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) is on developing a small-scale residual heat-driven sorption cooling system and integrating it into a CHP system. The aim of the EU project was clear: to reduce energy consumption on heating, cooling and electricity by using the residual heat in a CHP system for cooling. A tri-generation system of this kind could improve energy efficiency by some 15-20 percent, representing an energy saving of about 20 percent. The proposed cooling technology also avoids the use of harmful HCFC coolants. The key to this is sorption cooling.
The solid sorption system consists of two reactor vessel containing heat exchangers filled with silica gel. An evaporator and condenser are needed beside these two reactors. The picture above shows one of the reactor vessels, filled with heat exchangers.
Sorption cooling is a technology that uses heat to generate cold. It works on the principle of alternately absorbing and releasing a coolant in a solid. The system, which uses silica gel as the solid and water as the coolant, provides cooling of 5-10°C from a residual heat of 60-90°C. The cooling is achieved by evaporating the water: the water vapour is absorbed by the highly hygroscopic silica gel. The residual heat is needed to regenerate the gel, thus releasing the water vapour. Silica gel is a familiar desiccant: you will find a little bag of it in with your new trainers or laptop bag.
The cooling system, which has been developed, built and tested at ECN, comes up to expectation, generating 5 kW of cooling from 8 kW of heat. Following durability tests at ECN it was moved to the Centro Ricerche Fiat (CRF) in Italy. The technology is now being demonstrated in their Eco-Canteen system: residual heat from a new micro CHP unit (a gas engine) is used to generate cooling for the company canteen. The sorption cooling system comprises two reactor vessels containing heat exchangers filled with silica gel and an evaporator and a condenser.
Important objectives for further development are to produce a more compact system with an even higher volume-to-power ratio and to reduce the cost. This will involve improving the heat and mass transfer in the silica gel and using standard components as far as possible.
Once it has been demonstrated successfully the tri-generation concept can be used in a variety of applications , e.g. in cooling systems for supermarkets, small shopping malls and sports schools, also medium-sized old people’s homes and health centres. The test at Fiat will take until the end of August 2006. The market launch of a commercial system based on this technology is expected to take place in three to five years’ time.
The partners in the SOCOOL project are ECN, the Centro Ricerche Fiat (which is coordinating the project), the University of Warwick, the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) and the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Information
You can find more information on the SOCOOL project on the web site of the Polish Academy of Sciences at http://socool.ippt.gov.pl/home.php.
Contact
Robert de Boer
ECN Energy Efficiency in Industry
Tel. +31 (0)224 – 56 48 71
r.deboer@ecn.nl
Rome, 7-8 October 2013
>>Renewable energy is facing a new era, both globally and in the European context. Whilst...
>>ECN presents its attractive, innovative technologies and services to the...
>>
