Investigation on the performance of an absorption heat exchanger operating with seven aqueous-based working pairs.

Paper published in poster form during the conference. The performance of absorption heat exchanger operating with seven working pairs with water as refrigerant is studied. The operating condition is set according to the heating network parameters. The outlet temperature of the primary water is used to evaluate the performance. To find out how different the working pairs are, we use total KA (the sum of heat transfer coefficient times heat transfer area in each component) to represent their heat transfer capability and coefficient of lift to quantify their VLE (vapor-liquid equilibrium) property, while the solution flowrates are optimized to achieve the lowest outlet temperature. The outlet temperature trend shows conclusively that a better performance occurs when heat transfer capability and thermodynamic property compromise.