Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Applied Thermal Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apthermeng

Wire fin heat exchanger using aluminium fumarate for adsorption heat T

pumps
⁎
Majdi M. Saleha,b,c, , Raya Al-Dadaha, Saad Mahmouda, Eman Elsayeda, Osama El-Samnid
a
School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
b
University of Ajdabiya, Mechanical Engineering Department, Libya
c
University of Benghazi, Mechanical Engineering Department, Libya
d
Mechanical Power Engineering Department, University of Alexandria, Egypt

H I GH L IG H T S

• Results showed that wire fin heat exchanger had a better performance than others.
• Aluminium fumarate packed fin wire heat exchanger optimum design was proposed.
• Increasing fin height, spacing and tube diam. adversely affected the performance.

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Adsorption heat pumps have faced major challenges in terms of their large size and capital cost caused by using
COMSOL Multiphysics conventional heat exchangers for adsorption beds and the poor performance of the currently used adsorbent
Adsorption process materials such as silica gel and zeolite. This work experimentally and numerically investigates the performance
CFD model of a wire finned heat exchanger compared to rectangular finned and microchannel heat exchangers. The mi-
Aluminium fumarate/Water
crochannel heat exchanger experienced significantly high pressure drop almost 5 times that of the wire and
Heat pump
rectangular finned heat exchangers. The two heat exchangers were packed with aluminium fumarate metal-
Wire finned heat exchanger
organic framework (MOF) material where the finned wire heat exchanger had a superior performance. Then the
performance of the wire finned heat exchanger packed with aluminium fumarate was investigated in terms of
water uptake and surface temperature at various fin height (3.5, 7 and 14 mm), spacing (1, 2 and 3.5 mm) and
tube diameter (6, 9 and 12 mm). The numerical model was validated using experimental work showing good
agreement with deviation ranging from ± 10.

1. Introduction/Background
In the last few decades there have been significant interests in ad-
sorption systems for producing cooling, heat storage and water desali-
nation using solar and waste heat sources [1,2]. Adsorption systems
have the advantages of using environmentally friendly working fluids
such as water and ammonia that causes no ozone depletion or global
warming effect. Also, adsorption systems has almost no moving parts
and are free of vibration operation compared to conventional systems
[1,3–5]. However, the main disadvantages of adsorption systems are
the low performance, large system size and capital cost. These dis-
advantages prevent adsorption systems from widespread utilization and
commercialization [4,6,7]. Typically, a two bed adsorption system
consists of two adsorber/desorber beds, an evaporator and a condenser
as shown in Fig. 1. Adsorption beds are considered as the most im-
portant parts of the adsorption system. Their design determines the heat
and mass transfer rates in the system. In an adsorption process, the
cooling/heating fluid flows to alternately cool/heat the adsorbent ma-
terial through exchanging the heat of the fluid with the packed ad-
sorbent (Fig. 1).
Different types of heat exchangers design have been used in ad-
sorption systems. In this study three types of heat exchangers were
used, the wire finned, the rectangular finned and the microchannel heat
exchanger.
Increasing the rate of heat transfer between adsorbent material and
cooling/heating fluid increases the overall heat transfer coefficient
leading to improving the adsorber bed performance and reducing its
size [4,9]. Also, improving the refrigerant diffusion in the adsorbent

⁎
Corresponding author at: School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
E-mail address: majdidwas@gmail.com (M.M. Saleh).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2019.114426
Received 26 April 2019; Received in revised form 17 September 2019; Accepted 21 September 2019
Available online 23 September 2019
1359-4311/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M.M. Saleh, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Nomenclature →
u velocity field [m/s]
w maximum uptake [gref/gads]
A adsorption potential [J/mol] wmax equilibrium water vapour uptake [gref/gads]
Cp specific heat capacity [J/kg K] ρ density [kg/m3]
Dso pro-exponential constant of the effective vapour diffu- εads porosity [–]
sivity [m2/s] α permeability [ m2]
Ds surface diffusivity [m2/s] µ dynamic viscosity [Pa s]
E adsorption characteristic parameter [J/mol]
Ea activation energy [J/mol] Abbreviations
F constant depending on the particles shape [–]
△H isosteric enthalpy [J/kg] a air
→ Al aluminium
I unit matrix [–]
K overall mass transfer coefficient [1/S] ads adsorbent material
k thermal conductivity [W/(m K)] P packing
kkur turbulent kinetic energy [m2/s2] PTout pressure transducer at outlet
P equilibrium pressure [Pa] PTin pressure transducer at inlet
Pads saturation pressure of adsorbate at adsorption temperature T total
[Pa] w water
P/Pads relative pressure [–] CFD Computational Fluid Dynamics
R ideal gas constant [J/(mol K)] COP coefficient of performance
Rp radius of adsorbent particle [m] LDF Linear Driving Force
T temperature [K] MOF metal-organic framework
Tads adsorber temperature [°C] RTD Resistance Temperature Detectors
t time [s] SCP specific cooling power

Fig. 1. Schematic of two-bed adsorption system [8].

material by enhancing mass transfer leads to short cycle duration and
improved overall performance of whole system [4,10]. Therefore, it is
important to select the best design of the adsorber bed and the ad-
sorbent material that would enhance the heat and mass transfer [1,11].
Metal-organic Frameworks (MOFs) is a class of porous materials
that have been used as adsorbents due to their tunnable properties, high
surface area, pore volume and exceptional gas/vapour capacity
[3,12,13]. The water uptake of MOF adsorbent materials is higher than
that of conventional adsorbent materials such as silica gel and zeolite at
the same operating conditions [14]. Aluminium fumarate MOF material
has the advantage of high water uptake and can be regenerated at re-
latively low temperature (< 100 °C) [15] and hence is considered as a
potential candidate for adsorption heat pump application [16]. The
effect of adsorption bed configuration on the performance of adsorption
system were investigated experimentally and numerically in the lit-
erature. The performance of silica gel and zeolite were experimentally
and numerically investigated in a finned tube heat exchanger. Results
showed that at the specified operating conditions, a specific cooling
power (SCP) of 125–298 W/kg and a coefficient of performance (COP)
of 0.33–0.58 were achieved [17]. The performance of nine adsorption
bed configurations including shell and tube, spiral plate, annulus tube,
hairpin, plate fin, finned tube, plate-tube, plate and simple tube in
vehicle air conditioning and refrigeration was compared showing that
the finned tube heat exchanger outperformed other configuration and
achieving a COP of 0.25 and SCP of 80 W/kg [18]. The potential of
different radiators’ configurations was investigated by Zhu et al.
showing that they achieved a COP of 0.30 and an SCP of 198.4 W/kg
[19]. The water vapour uptake of two adsorption bed configurations
including a fin and tube heat exchanger and an engine oil cooler was
experimental tested by Sharafian et al. [20]. Results showed that the
engine oil cooler had a higher water vapour uptake than the fin and
tube heat exchanger. Also, it was reported that at a cycle time of
10 min, engine oil cooler system had an SCP of 112.9 W/kg and a COP
and of 0.34.

2
M.M. Saleh, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used by numerous re- underside.

searchers to simulate the mass and heat transfer performance of ad-
sorbent materials in various bed designs as shown in Table 1. In this
table, the researchers used the Linear Driving Force (LDF) equation to
model the adsorbent material kinetics and the Darcy equation for
modelling the flow in porous materials. It can be seen that the reported
deviation between experimental and CFD simulation in most of these
studies is less than 17% thus CFD is a powerful tool for simulation of
adsorber beds.
All the previous reported bed configurations suffer from being cost
ineffective, hard to be manufactured and having large volumes.
Therefore, in this study, we investigate the performance of a light-
weight and novel wire finned adsorption bed using aluminium fumarate
MOF material in terms of the finned wire height, finned wire spacing
and water tube diameter to get the optimum design of wire finned
adsorption bed. Also, comparing between the wire finned and rectan-
gular finned experimentally and numerically.
2.2. CFD modelling of heat exchangers packed with adsorbent material
This section describes the CFD modelling of heat exchangers packed
with adsorbent material at ambient pressure. Fig. 3 shows an example
of the model set up for the wire finned heat exchanger packed with
adsorbent material namely aluminum fumarate MOF and heated by
water flow through the tubes. The model governing Eqs. (4)–(12) are
divided into three groups which are equations of diffusion, flow of
heating fluid as mentioned in Eq. (1) and heat transfer in tube wall and
fins. Darcy Eq. (4) [27] was used to describe the diffusion process of the
ambient air through the adsorbent material while Eqs. (5) and (6) [28]
define the various terms used in Eq. (4).
∂ (εads ρair ) ∂ (ρads w )
+ ∇ (ρair uair ) =
∂t ∂t (4)

εads is the adsorbent bed porosity which was calculated through Eq. (5)
2. CFD modelling [29,30]. α is permeability which is calculated through Eq. (6) [31].
ρP
In this section the CFD modelling of three types of heat exchangers εads = 1 −
ρT (5)
was carried out to investigate the feasibility of using such heat ex-
changers for adsorption heat pump applications. The modelling in- 3
4εads Rp2
cludes (i) CFD modelling of heat exchangers without adsorbent material α=
150(1 − εads )2 (6)
(Section 2.1); (ii) CFD modelling of heat exchangers packed with the
adsorbent material at ambient conditions (Section 2.2) and (iii) CFD uair is the velocity of air and can be determined by the following
modelling of heat exchangers packed with the adsorbent material under equations;
adsorption process (Section 2.3).
α
uair = − ∇Pads
μ (7)
2.1. CFD model set up of heat exchanger without adsorbent material
Eqs. (8)–(10) describe the energy conservation for heating water,
Fig. 2 shows three types of heat exchangers namely rectangular aluminum tube wall and fins and adsorbent material, respectively.
finned tube, wire finned and microchannel heat exchangers which were ∂Tw
modelled using COMSOL Multiphysics software to investigate the heat ρw Cpw + Cpw →
u ∇Tw = ∇ (k w ∇Tw )
∂t (8)
transfer performance. Eq. (1) models the turbulent flow of hot water in
the tube. σTAl
ρAl CpAl = ∇ (kAl ∇TAl )
σt (9)
∂→u
ρw + ρw (→
u ∇) →
u
∂t ∂Tads α ∂w
→ 2 → ρeq Cpeq + Cpa ∇ [Tads ρa ⎜⎛− ∇Pads ⎟⎞ ⎤ = ∇ (keq ∇Tads ) + ρads ΔHads
{
= ∇ −Pw I + (μ + μT )[∇→
u + (∇→
u )T ] − ρw kkur I
3 } (1)
∂t ⎝ μ ⎠⎦
⎥ ∂t
(10)
Eqs. (2) and (3) describe the energy balance for the heating water
keq and ρeqCpeq are thermal conductivity and the effective thermal
and the tube wall and fins, respectively.
capacity of the adsorbent material as calculated by Eqs. (11) and (12)
∂Tw respectively.
ρw Cpw + Cpw →
u ∇Tw = ∇ (k w ∇Tw )
∂t (2)
ρeq Cpeq = (εads ρa + ρads w ) Cpa + ρads Cpads (11)
σT
ρAl CpAl Al = ∇ (kAl ∇TAl ) keq = (1 − εads ) kads + εads ka
σt (3) (12)

The boundary conditions of the model were fixing the evaporation Thermal contact resistance is the resistance between the adsorbent
pressure on the surfaces between the refrigerant and the adsorbent material and the heat exchanger metal surface. The resistance was
material. Also, the symmetry around the surfaces on one side and the calculated through equations mentioned elsewhere [5,31,32].

Table 1
Literature review of CFD modelling of adsorber beds.
References Adsorber bed type Adsorbent/Adsorbate Dim. Adsorbent kinetics model Intra-grain mass transfer resistance model Validation

[21] Cylindrical Silica gel/water 2D LDF Darcy –

[22] Cylindrical Zeolite-13X/water 2D LDF Darcy Good agreement
[23] Longitudinal and annular finned tube Zeolite-13X/water 2D LDF Darcy 17%
[1] Trapezoidal finned flat-tube SWS-1L/water 3D LDF Darcy 10%
[2] Circular finned tube Silica gel/water 2D LDF Darcy Good agreement
[24] Plate Zeolite/water 2D LDF Darcy Good agreement
[25] Rectangular finned tube Silica gel/water 3D LDF Darcy –
[26] Flat plate Activated carbon/ethanol 2D LDF Darcy –
[11] Finned tube with and without fins Silica gel/water 2D LDF Darcy –
[5] Square fin, annular fin tube Silica gel/water 2D LDF Darcy Good agreement

3
M.M. Saleh, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram for various types of heat exchanger: (a) Rectangular finned tube heat exchanger. (b) Wire finned heat exchanger. (c) Microchannel heat
exchanger.

Fig. 3. Schematic diagram for the domain of the quarter wire finned adsorption bed.

Table 2 2.3. CFD model for adsorption process

The Linear Driving Force equation parameters [12].
Parameter Aluminium fumarate/water In this section, modelling of the heat exchangers packed with the
adsorbent material under adsorption process. This simulation includes
Ea 18,026 J/mol in addition to Eqs. (4)–(12) described above, the adsorption kinetics
Dso 1.24E10−09 m2/s equations which predict vapour water uptake for aluminum fumarate
F.Ds 5.49E10−13 m2/s
Rp 281E10−6 m
using the Linear Driving Force (LDF) as follow in Eqs. (13)–(15)
[12,33,34].

4
M.M. Saleh, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Fig. 4. Three types of heat exchangers under study: (a) Wire finned, (b) rectangular finned tube and (c) microchannel.

Fig. 5. Pictorial view of testing facility of heat transfer for the wire finned heat exchanger.

∂w
= K (wmax − w )
∂t (13)

15DS
K=
Rp2 (14)

Fig. 6. Schematic figure of the test facility.
E
DS = Dso exp ⎡− a ⎤
⎣ RTbed ⎥
⎢ ⎦ (15)
The Linear Driving Force (LDF) theory is based on the assumption
that the difference between the adsorbate concentration on the inner
and the outer surfaces of the adsorbent particle and the adsorption rate
are proportional to each other [35]. Also, the inner diffusion rate is
much slower than the adsorption rate on the surface of the particle,
hence the linear driving force theory neglects the mass transfer re-
sistance between particles (inter-particle) as the adsorption rate on the
surface is not considered as a rate-limiting and it only considers the

5
M.M. Saleh, et al.
Fig. 7. Variation of surface temperature on fin with time. (Hot water flow
rate = 5 L/min, hot water inlet temperature of 95 °C and ambient temperature
of 23.36 °C).
Fig. 8. Variation of pressure difference between inlet and out let with time.
(Hot water flow rate = 5 L/min, hot water inlet temperature of 95 °C and am-
bient temperature of 23.36 °C).
resistance inside the particle (intra-particle mass transfer resistance)
[36–38].
Values of Dso, Rp, F, Ds and Ea are listed in Table 2. where wmax is the
maximum water uptake of aluminum fumarate granules determined
using the adsorption isotherm Eqs. (16)–(19) [12].
wmax = 0.111993Exp (−0.000258797A) at A > 3987 (16)
Fig. 9. Pictorial view of packing adsorbent material for (a) wire finned tube and (b) rectangular finned tube adsorber bed.
6
Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426
wmax = 2.36129 − 9.93768E − 04A + 1.05709E − 07A2 at 2990 ≤ A
≤ 3987 (17)
wmax
= −3.124455E − 11A3 + 1.68302E − 07A2 − 3.12E − 04A + 0.5948
at A < 2900 (18)
where A is the adsorption potential given by Eq. (19).
A = RTln (P / Ps ) (19)
3. Experimental work
This section describes the experimental testing of the three heat
exchangers' configurations shown in Fig. 2. Fig. 4a shows the wire
finned heat exchanger with width of 260 mm and height of 430 mm. It
consists of ten aluminium tubes with diameter of 6 mm. The first five
tubes are connected with a header for the supply hot water. The return
of these tubes will work as a supply for the other five tubes. The wire
fins have fin height of 7 mm, fin spacing of 2 mm and wire diameter of
0.66 mm. The heating water flows through tube with an internal dia-
meter of 4.5 mm. Fig. 4b shows the rectangular finned tube heat ex-
changer, with 10 fins/cm, fin dimensions of 28.75 × 30 × 0.105 mm
and six tubes. The length of the copper tube is 370 mm while the tube
diameter is 15.87 mm. Fig. 4c shows a compact heat exchanger used in
automotive radiators. This heat exchanger consists of multiported
terminal (MPT) rectangular aluminium fins and aluminium channels.
The aluminium fins are fitted between the MPT with number of fins of 8
fins/cm where the dimensions of each channel are 200 × 52.8 × 3 mm.
Figs. 5 and 6 show pictorial view and schematic diagram of the
experimental test facility consisting of wire finned heat exchanger, hot
water tank, circulating pump, flow meter, pressure transducers at inlet
and outlet, RTD thermocouples at the inlet and outlet, K-type thermo-
couples fitted on the heat exchanger surface, power supply and data
logger. The water tank has two heaters with a total power of 9 kW and
controlled using a thermostat which was set at 95 °C. Eight K-type
surface thermocouples (RS model number 621–2158) were fitted on the
wire fins at different position as shown in Figs. 5 and 6. The platinum
RTD thermocouples (RS Pro 123–5602) are capable of measuring
temperature ranging from −50 to 250 °C. Pressure transducers
(PXM309-007GI) are capable of measuring pressure ranging from
0–7 bar with an accuracy of 0.25%. The thermocouples and the pressure
transducers are connected with a data logger and PC for logging and
monitoring all measurements from the components of the test facility.
Fig. 7 shows the time variation of the fin temperature (measured at
the top of the fin) for the three types of heat exchangers tested while
M.M. Saleh, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Fig. 10. Temperature distribution of three heat exchangers' configurations at 700 s: (a) rectangular finned tube heat exchanger, (b) wire finned tube heat exchanger
and (c) microchannel heat exchanger.

Fig. 11. Comparison of temperature at the surface of fins between experimental and predicted data: (a) rectangular finned tube heat exchanger, (b) wire finned heat
exchanger and (c) microchannel heat exchanger.

7
M.M. Saleh, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Fig. 12. Comparison among microchannel, wire finned and rectangular heat
exchanger.
Fig. 14. Schematic diagram of the wire finned.

Fig. 8 shows the pressure difference between inlet and outlet at hot
water inlet temperature of 95 °C and ambient temperature of 23.36 °C. It
is clear from these figures that microchannel and wire finned heat ex-
changers outperform the rectangular finned tube heat exchanger in
terms of achieving the highest surface temperature. However, the mi-
crochannel heat exchanger produced significantly higher pressure dif-
ference compared to the other two heat exchangers.
Fig. 9 shows the wire finned tube and rectangular finned tube heat
exchangers packed with the same amount (0.560 kg) of aluminium
fumarate granules with 425–700 µm average diameter. Several K type
surface thermocouples were fitted on the heat exchangers to measure
the temperature at various locations.

4. Model validation

Fig. 10 shows the CFD predicted temperature distributions at 700 s.
At this time, two of the three heat exchangers reached the maximum
hot water temperature of 95 °C as shown in Figs. 7 and 8.
Fig. 11 compares the surface temperature of the heat exchanger
variation with time as predicted by the CFD model and measured by
experimental testing for rectangular finned tube, wire finned and mi-
crochannel heat exchangers. The CFD model prediction shows good
agreement with experimental results with a deviation of ± 9%.
Fig. 12 compares the fin surface temperature of the three heat ex-
changers with time at same material volume of 84.4 cm3, mass flow rate
of 5 L/min and hot water inlet of 95 °C. It is clear from this figure that
the surface temperature of the wire finned and microchannel heat ex-
changers are higher than that of rectangular finned tube heat ex-
changer. However, the high pressure drop in the microchannel is about
5 times that of the wire finned heat exchanger as shown in Fig. 8
leading to higher pumping power consumption. Therefore, in the next
section the work in this paper will focus on the wire finned heat
Fig. 15. Effect of fin height on the average aluminium fumarate surface tem-
perature. (Fin spacing = 2 mm and fin diameter = 0.66 mm) (Mass flow rate of
5 L/min, ambient temperature of 22.2 °C, atmospheric pressure and hot water
inlet of 95 °C).
exchanger for adsorption applications.
5. Results and discussion
5.1. Packed wire finned adsorption bed at atmospheric pressure
5.1.1. Numerical model validation
Fig. 13a shows the CFD predicted temperature distribution for the
wire finned heat exchanger packed with aluminium fumarate at at-
mospheric pressure. It can be noticed that after 700 s, the temperature
at the top of the fin was approximately 80 °C.

Fig. 13. (a) CFD predicted temperature distribution and (b) Comparison of the predicted average bed temperature with experimental data. (Mass flow rate of 5 L/
min, ambient temperature of 22.2 °C, atmospheric pressure and hot water inlet of 95 °C).

8
M.M. Saleh, et al. Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426

Fig. 18. Effect of wire fin height on the water vapour uptake of aluminium
Fig. 16. Effect of wire fin spacing on the average aluminium fumarate surface
fumarate packed bed. (Tube diameter = 6 mm, fin spacing = 2 mm, evaporator
temperature. (Wire fin diameter = 0.66 mm and fin height = 7 mm) (Mass flow
temperature of 15 °C, inlet cooling water temperature of 30 °C, an initial bed
rate of 5 L/min, ambient temperature of 22.2 °C, atmospheric pressure and hot
temperature of 90 °C, flow rate of cooling water of 0.5 L/min and a half cycle
water inlet of 95 °C).
time of 1800 s).

Fig. 13b represents the validation of the developed CFD model

exchanger at atmospheric pressure. Various fin heights of 3.5, 7 and
through comparing the predicted numerical adsorbent material surface
14 mm were numerically investigated. It can be noted that average bed
temperature at the middle wire finned heat exchanger against the ex-
temperature increases with increasing the time but decreases with the
perimental results. The figure shows good agreement between the ex-
fin height increase. It is clear that the surface adsorbent material tem-
perimental and numerical results with a deviation not exceeding ±
perature for fin height of 3.5 mm is higher than the others. This can be
10%.
attributed to that through increasing the fin height, the amount of the
Fig. 14 shows a cross section of the wire heat exchanger identifying
adsorbent would increase and hence the ratio between the adsorbent
the fin height, fin spacing and fin diameter.
and the metal mass would also increase causing a poorer heat transfer
rate.
5.1.2. Effect of fin height on the adsorbent surface temperature
Fig. 15 shows the effect of fin height on the average surface tem-
perature of aluminium fumarate granules in the wire finned heat

Fig. 17. Effect of wire fin height and tube diameter on the average aluminium fumarate surface temperature. (Mass flow rate of 5 L/min, ambient temperature of
22.2 °C, atmospheric pressure and hot water inlet of 95 °C).

9
M.M. Saleh, et al.
Fig. 19. Effect of wire fin spacing on the water vapour uptake of aluminium
fumarate packed bed. (Tube diameter = 6 mm, fin height = 7 mm, evaporator
temperature of15 °C, inlet cooling water temperature of 30 °C, an initial bed
temperature of 90 °C, flow rate of cooling water of 0.5 L/min and a half cycle
time of 1800 s).
5.1.3. Effect of fin spacing on the adsorbent surface temperature
Fig. 16 shows the effect of fin spacing on the average surface tem-
perature of aluminium fumarate granules in the wire finned heat ex-
changer at atmospheric pressure. Various wire fin spacing of 1, 2 and
3.5 mm were investigated. It can be noticed that the average tem-
perature increases with time but decreases with the fin spacing in-
crease. This shows that increasing the fin spacing has an effect on the
average temperature similar to the effect of increasing the fin height.
This is due to that increasing the fin spacing would also increase the
amount of the adsorbent packed in the bed. It is also clear that the
surface adsorbent material temperature of wire finned heat exchanger
of 1 mm fin spacing is higher than the others.
5.1.4. Effect of tube diameter on the adsorbent surface temperature
Fig. 17 shows the effect of tube diameter (6, 9 and 12 mm) at var-
ious fin height of 3.5, 7 mm and 14 mm on the average aluminium fu-
marate temperature with time. It can be noticed that for all the fin
heights modelled, the adsorbent material temperature increases as the
tube diameter decreases. This is due to the increased velocity of the
heating fluid flowing inside the tubes thus improving the heat transfer
coefficient.
5.2. Adsorption process of wire finned adsorber bed
In this section, the validated CFD model is used to investigate the
effects of wire fin height (3.5, 7 and 14 mm) and the wire fin spacing (1,
2 and 3.5 mm) on the water vapour uptake of aluminium fumarate
during the adsorption process.
Fig. 18 shows the effect of fin height (3.5, 7 and 14 mm) on the
water vapour uptake. It can be noticed that the water vapour uptake
increased with increasing the time of the adsorption process. Also, it
can be noticed that as the fin height increased, the water vapour uptake
decreased. This is attributed to that increasing the fin height would
result in an increase in the thickness of adsorbent material packed be-
tween the fins and hence a slower adsorption kinetics and poorer heat
transfer rates are expected as it was concluded from Fig. 15.
Fig. 19 shows the effect of the fin spacing on the water vapour
uptake. Different finned spacing of 1, 2 and 3.5 mm. It can be noticed
that as the fin spacing increases, the water vapour uptake decreases.
This is attributed to the fact that increasing the fin spacing will increase
the thickness of the adsorbent layer and hence a reduction in the water
vapour diffusion to the aluminium fumarate is expected. This is in
agreement with Fig. 16. It is clear that for the fin spacing of 1 mm and
fin height of 7 mm, the water vapour uptake is the highest.
10
Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426
6. Conclusions
In this paper, three different heat exchanger configurations (rec-
tangular finned tube, wire finned and microchannel) have been in-
vestigated for the first time. Although the microchannel heat exchanger
has shown the best heat transfer performance, it suffered from sig-
nificantly high pressure drop through which made it not suitable to be
investigated further. The other two heat exchangers (rectangular and
wire finned) were chosen to be packed with aluminium fumarate MOF
material which has not been reported previously. The wire finned heat
exchanger showed a better heat transfer performance than the rectan-
gular finned tube therefore it was chosen to be investigated further. The
optimization of the wire finned heat exchanger was carried out to show
the optimum configuration (fin height, fin spacing and tube diameter).
Such information has not been reported yet for this adsorption bed
design.
Results showed that reducing the wire fin height and spacing re-
sulted in high heat transfer and water uptake leading to a better system
performance. Also, reducing the pipe diameter enhanced the convective
heat transfer through the tubes resulting in increasing the adsorption
bed heat transfer performance and water vapour uptake. Wire finned
heat exchanger with wire fin height of 3.5 mm, fin spacing of 1 mm and
tube diameter of 6 mm produced the highest water vapour uptake.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the British Council Institutional
Links grant, “Newton-Musharafa” and their partner “Science and
Technology Development Fund (STDF), Egypt” for sponsoring this
project with the grant number 216418549.
References
[1] M.M. Kowsari, H. Niazmand, M.M. Tokarev, Bed configuration effects on the finned
flat-tube adsorption heat exchanger performance: Numerical modeling and ex-
perimental validation, Appl. Energy 213 (2018) 540–554.
[2] M.B. Elsheniti, M.A. Hassab, A.-E. Attia, Examination of effects of operating and
geometric parameters on the performance of a two-bed adsorption chiller, Appl.
Therm. Eng. 146 (2019) 674–687.
[3] A. Rezk, R. Al-Dadah, S. Mahmoud, A. Elsayed, Characterisation of metal organic
frameworks for adsorption cooling, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 55 (2012) 7366–7374.
[4] M. Verde, K. Harby, J.M. Corberán, Optimization of thermal design and geometrical
parameters of a flat tube-fin adsorbent bed for automobile air-conditioning, Appl.
Therm. Eng. 111 (2017) 489–502.
[5] H. Niazmand, H. Talebian, M. Mahdavikhah, Bed geometrical specifications effects
on the performance of silica/water adsorption chillers, Int. J. Refrig. 35 (2012)
2261–2274.
[6] M. Verde, L. Cortés, J. Corberán, A. Sapienza, S. Vasta, G. Restuccia, Modelling of
an adsorption system driven by engine waste heat for truck cabin A/C. Performance
estimation for a standard driving cycle, Appl. Therm. Eng. 30 (2010) 1511–1522.
[7] M. Ghazy, K. Harby, A.A. Askalany, B.B. Saha, Adsorption isotherms and kinetics of
activated carbon/difluoroethane adsorption pair: theory and experiments, Int. J.
Refrig. 70 (2016) 196–205.
[8] E.S. Ali, A.A. Askalany, K. Harby, M.R. Diab, A.S. Alsaman, Adsorption desalination-
cooling system employing copper sulfate driven by low grade heat sources, Appl.
Therm. Eng. 136 (2018) 169–176.
[9] B. Choudhury, B.B. Saha, P.K. Chatterjee, J.P. Sarkar, An overview of developments
in adsorption refrigeration systems towards a sustainable way of cooling, Appl.
Energy 104 (2013) 554–567.
[10] D. Wang, Y. Li, D. Li, Y. Xia, J. Zhang, A review on adsorption refrigeration tech-
nology and adsorption deterioration in physical adsorption systems, Renew.
Sustain. Energy Rev. 14 (2010) 344–353.
[11] A. Çağlar, The effect of fin design parameters on the heat transfer enhancement in
the adsorbent bed of a thermal wave cycle, Appl. Therm. Eng. 104 (2016) 386–393.
[12] E. Elsayed, A.-D. Raya, S. Mahmoud, A. Elsayed, P.A. Anderson, Aluminium fu-
marate and CPO-27 (Ni) MOFs: Characterization and thermodynamic analysis for
adsorption heat pump applications, Appl. Therm. Eng. 99 (2016) 802–812.
[13] D. Saha, S. Deng, Ammonia adsorption and its effects on framework stability of
MOF-5 and MOF-177, J. Colloid Interface Sci. 348 (2010) 615–620.
[14] S.K. Henninger, H.A. Habib, C. Janiak, MOFs as adsorbents for low temperature
M.M. Saleh, et al.
heating and cooling applications, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131 (2009) 2776–2777.
[15] H.W.B. Teo, A. Chakraborty, Y. Kitagawa, S. Kayal, M. Transfer, Experimental study
of isotherms and kinetics for adsorption of water on Aluminium Fumarate, Int. J.
Heat Mass Transf. 114 (2017) 621–627.
[16] H.W.B. Teo, A. Chakraborty, S.J.M. Kayal, M. Materials, Formic acid modulated
(fam) aluminium fumarate MOF for improved isotherms and kinetics with water
adsorption: Cooling/heat pump applications, Micropor. Mesopor. Mater. 272
(2018) 109–116.
[17] D.B. Riffel, U. Wittstadt, F.P. Schmidt, T. Núñez, F.A. Belo, A.P. Leite, F. Ziegler,
Transient modeling of an adsorber using finned-tube heat exchanger, Int. J. Heat
Mass Transf. 53 (2010) 1473–1482.
[18] A. Sharafian, M. Bahrami, Assessment of adsorber bed designs in waste-heat driven
adsorption cooling systems for vehicle air conditioning and refrigeration, Renew.
Sustain. Energy Rev. 30 (2014) 440–451.
[19] L. Zhu, Z. Gong, B. Ou, C. Wu, Performance analysis of four types of adsorbent beds
in a double-adsorber adsorption refrigerator, Procedia Eng. 121 (2015) 129–137.
[20] A. Sharafian, S.M.N. Mehr, W. Huttema, M. Bahrami, Effects of different adsorber
bed designs on in-situ water uptake rate measurements of AQSOA FAM-Z02 for
vehicle air conditioning applications, Appl. Therm. Eng. 98 (2016) 568–574.
[21] İ. Solmuş, C. Yamalı, C. Yıldırım, K. Bilen, Transient behavior of a cylindrical ad-
sorbent bed during the adsorption process, Appl. Energy 142 (2015) 115–124.
[22] K. Leong, Y. Liu, Numerical modeling of combined heat and mass transfer in the
adsorbent bed of a zeolite/water cooling system, Appl. Therm. Eng. 24 (2004)
2359–2374.
[23] B. Golparvar, H. Niazmand, A. Sharafian, A.A. Hosseini, Optimum fin spacing of
finned tube adsorber bed heat exchangers in an exhaust gas-driven adsorption
cooling system, Appl. Energy 232 (2018) 504–516.
[24] G. Füldner, L. Schnabel, Non-isothermal kinetics of water adsorption in compact
adsorbent layers on a metal support, in: Proc. COMSOL Conf. 2008 Hann, 2008.
[25] B. Shi, R. AL-Dadah, S. Mahmoud, A. Elsayed, A. Rezk, Mathematical and CFD
modelling for a rectangular finned tube adsorption bed for automotive cooling
system, Proc. of ICAE, 2013.
11
Applied Thermal Engineering 164 (2020) 114426
[26] A. Elsayed, S. Mahmoud, R. Al-Dadah, J. Bowen, W. Kaialy, Experimental and
numerical investigation of the effect of pellet size on the adsorption characteristics
of activated carbon/ethanol, Energy Procedia 61 (2014) 2327–2330.
[27] S. Jribi, B.B. Saha, S. Koyama, A. Chakraborty, K.C. Ng, Study on activated carbon/
HFO-1234ze (E) based adsorption cooling cycle, Appl. Therm. Eng. 50 (2013)
1570–1575.
[28] Z. Rogala, Adsorption chiller using flat-tube adsorbers–Performance assessment and
optimization, Appl. Therm. Eng. 121 (2017) 431–442.
[29] J.R. Nimmo, Porosity and pore size distribution, Encyclopedia Soils Environ. 3
(2004) 295–303.
[30] A. Pushnov, Calculation of average bed porosity, Chem. Pet. Eng. 42 (2006) 14–17.
[31] L.Z. Zhang, L. Wang, Effects of coupled heat and mass transfers in adsorbent on the
performance of a waste heat adsorption cooling unit, Appl. Therm. Eng. 19 (1999)
195–215.
[32] A.R.M. Rezk, Theoretical and experimental investigation of silica gel/water ad-
sorption refrigeration systems, in: University of Birmingham, 2012.
[33] H. Chua, K.C. Ng, A. Malek, T. Kashiwagi, A. Akisawa, B.B. Saha, Modeling the
performance of two-bed, sillica gel-water adsorption chillers, Int. J. Refrig. 22
(1999) 194–204.
[34] A. Sakoda, M. Suzuki, Fundamental study on solar powered adsorption cooling
system, J. Chem. Eng. Jpn. 17 (1984) 52–57.
[35] J. Wang, R. Wang, L. Wang, Water vapor sorption performance of ACF-CaCl 2 and
silica gel-CaCl 2 composite adsorbents, Appl. Therm. Eng. 100 (2016) 893–901.
[36] S. Narayanan, S. Yang, H. Kim, E.N. Wang, Optimization of adsorption processes for
climate control and thermal energy storage, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 77 (2014)
288–300.
[37] H. Niazmand, H. Talebian, M. Mahdavikhah, Effects of particle diameter on per-
formance improvement of adsorption systems, Appl. Therm. Eng. 59 (2013)
243–252.
[38] N. Bimbo, W. Xu, J.E. Sharpe, V.P. Ting, T.J. Mays, High-pressure adsorptive sto-
rage of hydrogen in MIL-101 (Cr) and AX-21 for mobile applications: cryocharging
and cryokinetics, Mater. Des. 89 (2016) 1086–1094.