Solar adsorption air conditioning system – Recent advances and its potential for cooling an office building in tropical climate

Solar adsorption air conditioning system (SADCS) is an excellent alternative to the conventional vapour compression system (VCS). SADCS has advantages over VCS system notably that it is a green cooling technology that utilizes solar energy to drive the adsorption/desorption cycle, using pure water as a green HFC-free refrigerant, mechanically simple and can be operated without moving parts other than the magnetic valves. In the last decade, several developments and innovations have been achieved in the field of SADCS research. However, further research is needed to bring this technology to practical level. Hence, this paper first discusses the literature survey that adds insights into the research of SADCS technologies with emphasis placed on the practical research that has been conducted at lab-scale and commercial level. Then, the potential of SADCS for cooling applications of an office building in tropical climate is discussed using simulation in TRNSYS. From the simulation we found that the solar fraction of the SADCS system is as high as 63 %, with the temperature and the relative humidity of an office space can reach an average of 20 °C and 60 % respectively, which are within the range of the thermal comfort level for the occupants.