Prediction method of adsorption thermal energy storage reactor performances based on reaction wave model

Adsorption thermal energy storage (ATES) is one of the most important ways to achieve efficient utilization of solar energy. The lack of effective prediction methods of reactor performance severely restricts the application of the ATES system. In this paper, the prediction method of reactor performance was proposed based on the adsorption reaction wave model. The expressions between the reactor performances and the design parameters were derived by using the wave parameters of the adsorption rate wave. The mathematical relationships of design parameters-wave parameters and wave parameters-reactor performances were established, respectively. The experiments on adsorption thermal energy storage were performed, in which the zeolite-water vapor was determined as the working pairs. The air temperature and specific humidity at the inlet and outlet of the reactor were measured, and corresponding adsorption amount, thermal energy and stable output power were obtained. A comparison of the predictions for the reactor performances with experiments was carried out. The results indicated that the proposed prediction method was capable of accurately predicting the reactor performances, with a maximum deviation of less than 6.0 %. Moreover, the proposed prediction method is superior to available methods in terms of simplicity and generality.