Adsorption Chiller

An adsorption chiller is a cooling system that produces refrigeration by letting a refrigerant vapor adsorb onto the surface of a solid material, such as silica gel, activated carbon or zeolite, rather than by compressing and condensing the refrigerant the way a conventional vapor compression chiller does; a later generation phase then drives the refrigerant back off the solid to complete the cycle. The technology traces to an adsorption cooling method Michael Faraday demonstrated in 1821, decades after William Cullen first experimented with artificial refrigeration in 1748, and because it uses no CFCs or ammonia it has drawn renewed interest as a quiet, non corrosive and environmentally friendly way to make chilled water from waste heat. It can run on heat from fossil fuels, biomass, nuclear fission, geothermal sources, waste industrial heat or solar thermal collectors, and small gas fired adsorption heat pumps built on the same principle are beginning to appear in Europe for home heating.