Plastic heat exchangers for adsorption cooling: Thermodynamic and dynamic performance

In this work, plastic adsorbent heat exchangers were developed by a 3D printing technique and experimentally tested aiming at evaluating their potential for adsorption cooling applications. Various plastic materials were selected and characterized to measure the most interesting physical behaviours both before and after the printing process. Micro scale plastic flat type heat exchangers were also realized by a 3D printer, integrated with the water sorbent AQSOA FAM Z02 and experimentally tested under real operating conditions typical for adsorption cooling applications to measure the dynamic performance of the new adsorber configurations. To conclude the study, a thermodynamic analysis was carried out by the use of a mathematical model to evaluate the influence of plastic materials on the cooling Coefficient Of Performance. Results showed that both in terms of thermodynamic and dynamic performance the plastic adsorbers are competitive with metallic ones with a relevant mass reduction and the possibility to manufacture complex geometries by the 3D printing technology. In particular, under the tested operating conditions, the plastic adsorbers were able to deliver a specific cooling power of 1.88-2.40 kW per kg of dry sorbent while the metallic adsorber reached 2.34 kW/kg.