Design optimization of hydrocarbon absorption refrigeration cycles / Mohamed Ismail Ahmed Marghany ; Supervised Hamdy Abdelaziz Mostafa , Ahmed Soliman Mohamed Fawzy

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Chemical Engineering

In this work, the use of hydrocarbon solvent-refrigerant pairs in absorption refrigeration cycles was studied in order to determine the optimum solvent for each refrigerant at different operating conditions based on the coefficient of performance (COP) of the cycle and the solution pumping power. The performance of these hydrocarbon absorption refrigeration cycles was studied and compared to the commercially available absorption chillers and to vapor compression refrigeration cycles. The results of this study showed that the choice of the optimum solvent- refrigerant pair depends on the process conditions and that the performance of the cycle is enhanced at conditions of high evaporator temperature and/or low condenser temperatures. It was found that hydrocarbon absorption refrigeration systems can compete effectively with the commercial absorption refrigeration cycles without experiencing the limitations of these cycles. When compared to vapor compression cycles, hydrocarbon absorption chillers save a significant amount of the electric power required in the cycle despite having lower coefficients of performance and are recommended to replace the traditional vapor compression cycles in plants where surplus amounts of waste heat energy are available. Cycles using hexane-propane or heptane-propane as solvent-refrigerant pairs were suggested for use industrially and their performance was studied along with the effect of the refrigerant recovery and purity on the cycle's performance

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