Objective
When the temperature of the heat sink of a heat pump shows medium to large glides and the temperature lift is not too high, compression/resorption heat pumps are a promising heating method because their COP (coefficient of performance) is larger than for pure refrigerant compression heat pumps (up to 35% higher COP's can be attained). Compression/resorption heat pumps are among the most suitable options to reduce the energy consumption in buildings and also interesting for industrial processes and systems.
The main objective of this project is to develop enhanced compression resorption heat pumps which can efficiently deliver low temperature heat for heating purposes in buildings and industrial processes. This based on the integration of compression and absorption processes.
Further objectives are then: to acquire knowledge and understanding of the (wet) compression process and of the simultaneous heat and mass transfer processes in this type of apparatus and to design, simulate and demonstrate its features.
Research will be conducted in two main directions: wet compression resorption cycle and dry compression resorption cycle. These two cycles have shown to be complementary, each one having a certain operating conditions range where its performance shows the largest advantages.
The proposal consists of five tasks with the following objectives:
- To optimize the dry compression/resorption heat pump cycle.
- The optimization of the resorber and desorber of compression/resorption heat pump cycles concerning a maximum in heat and mass transfer with a minimum of surface, volume and production costs of the heat exchanger is the challenge of this task.
- To acquire knowledge and understanding of the two-phase compression processes occurring in two-phase flow compressors and their impact on the compressor efficiency. This in such a way that design tools can be developed for compressors for application in wet compression/resorption cycles.
- To experimentally validate the operation of the two-phase flow compressor design in a wet compression/resorption heat pump pilot plant. To experimentally verify the results and predictions of the previous tasks.
- To evaluate the energetic and economic performance of compression/resorption heat pumps for heating purposes in buildings and industrial processes. To compare these performances with the performances of competitive systems.
The results of these research efforts will be integrated in a comparison of the achievements of the compression resorption systems developed in both directions.
The expected achievements are:
a. Design tools for an effective and compact compression resorption heat pump for heating purposes in (commercial) buildings, district heating and industrial processes.
b. Design tools for compressors for application in wet compression resorption cycles.
c. Experimental results with a pilot plant for a dry compression resorption cycle.
d. Experimental results with a pilot plant for a wet compression resorption cycle.
e. Energy consumption and economic comparison between the two compression resorption cycles and competitive systems.
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
CSC - Cost-sharing contractsCoordinator
2628 CD Delft
Netherlands