Paper No 73 – Development of a new GAX-based absorption heat pump for Domestic Hot Water production – 14th IEA Heat Pump Conference, Chicago, USA
This paper presents the numerical and experimental results of an ammonia-water absorption heat pump based on a novel Generator Absorber heat eXchanger (GAX) architecture. A prototype at lab scale of 25 kW is developed in a perspective of performance, compactness and use of market-available components in order to address wide industrial applications. This machine is driven by a hot source at temperature above 100°C to produce hot water (> 60°C) from a lower temperature heat of about 30°C. The overall performance of the prototype under different operating conditions is characterized by measurements with high-quality temperature, pressure and mass flow rate sensors. The impacts of the external conditions are investigated while varying the evaporator temperature in the range of 25-50°C and the generator temperature in the range of 110- 170°C. The experimental results show attractive performances with a maximum thermal Coefficient Of Performance (COP) of 1.72 and a maximum electrical COP of about 140. Preliminary techno-economic assessment has shown the interest of this technology