Sorption refrigeration research at JPL/NASA

Abstract

Since 1979, long-life, reliable heat-powered sorption refrigeration systems have been developed for spacecraft use at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). JPL has successfully built and tested a series of cryogenic sorption refrigeration systems for spacecraft sensor cooling and is presently assembling a −263°C (10K) hydride sorption refrigerator, which will fly on the Space Shuttle in 1994. With the addition of novel regenerative heating techniques, this same technology has more recently been applied to design high efficiency, ground-based adsorption heat pumps. Using actual sorption isotherm data and detailed analytic thermal computer models, analysis has predicted that the cooling and heating COPs will be significantly better than for any other single stage, heat-powered heat pump. Specifically the cooling COP (COP c) with the new regenerative system using ammonia is predicted to be as high as about 1.16. Recent tests on a single carbon sorbent canister compressor have been performed with R22, R134a, and ammonia. Transient thermal response of the sorption compressor has compared well with computer predictions. With ammonia, the total amount of average cooling from the 0.51 kg bed of carbon has been measured to be about 1038 Btu h −1 (304 W) for a 6 min full cycle including both heating and cooling.