A review of the experimental performances and challenges of the absorption system technologies.

This paper aims at reviewing the experimental investigations of different absorption technologies from 1980 to 2014. Analyses from over 100 publications conclude that the majority of experimental investigations on absorption technologies have focused on cooling and refrigeration applications with efficiency between 0.1 and 0.8 and cooling capacities not higher than 20 kW. We are also interested in the relationship between the COP of the different absorption machines and their generating, condensing and evaporating temperatures. For heating applications, the use of absorption heat transformers (AHT) can easily upgrade the low-level heat sources and can deliver heat at a higher temperature from absorber. This technology presents important issues for the recovery of the low-level industrial waste heat. We also develop a model of absorption heat pump for treating the temperature operating conditions poorly studied in the literature.