Performance of a single effect absorbing chiller lithium bromide-water coupled to a solar collector

In this study, the potential of using solar energy which would be catch by a flat plate heat exchanger is investigated as the input source of heat to a single absorption refrigeration system of lithium bromide-water. Validating the simulation, results was compared to the theoretical and empirical results of previous studies. The daily operation of the refrigeration system for atmospheric data in Tehran's typical day, shows that there would be an optimum number of flat plate collectors in the solar absorption system, which is 50 with a surface area of 5/38 square meters. This number, in addition to have a proper performance factor, can provide a cooling load of about 5 kilowatts, while the power consumption of pumping in the combined cycle is not considerable. Finally, the effect of different performance parameters including temperature of the heat generator, evaporator temperature on the daily efficiency of the solar refrigeration cycle has been investigated. As the evaporator temperature increases, the daily performance of the solar refrigeration system is increased. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.