Experimental Investigation of Low Temperature Grain Storage with a Solar-powered Adsorption Chiller

Solar space cooling appears to be very attractive for low temperature grain storage because the pattern of availability of solar energy matches the demand for cooling. In this study, a novel solar-powered adsorption chiller was developed and put into experimental operation used for low temperature grain storage. Test results show that the solar-powered adsorption chiller can produce a cooling capacity about 66 to 90W per m² collector area. Its daily solar cooling COP (coefficient of performance) is about 0.1 to o.13 under the climatic conditions of daily solar radiation being about 16 to 21MJ/m²·day. With appropriate ventilation appliance, this kind of solar-powered adsorption chiller could be considered as an alternative for low temperature grain storage in most areas of China.