Solar-Assisted Absorption Cooling Technologies

Solar-assisted absorption cooling combines solar thermal collectors with thermally driven chillers to produce cooling without relying solely on electricity. In these systems, solar collectors capture heat which drives an absorption cycle—commonly using lithium bromide/water or ammonia/water working pairs—in single- or double-effect configurations. The driving heat source may be supplied directly by flat-plate, evacuated-tube or concentrating collectors, often coupled with thermal storage to buffer fluctuations in solar irradiance. Key advantages include reduced peak electrical demand, lower greenhouse-gas emissions and suitability for off-grid or hybrid energy schemes. Recent engineering advances have focused on compact high-glide chillers that extract more heat per unit temperature drop, novel absorbent formulations to improve stability and crystallisation resistance, and integrated control strategies for dynamic matching of collector output to cooling load. Applications span residential and commercial building air-conditioning, process cooling in industry, district cooling networks and remote facilities. Ongoing research targets enhanced coefficient of performance, cost-effective materials, resilient operation under variable solar conditions and seamless integration with other renewable sources and storage media.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Solar-Assisted Absorption Cooling Technologies publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in solar-assisted absorption cooling technologies across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Absorption chiller: A refrigeration device that uses a heat source to drive a cooling cycle, typically employing an absorbent–refrigerant pair instead of mechanical compression.

Solar thermal collector: A device that captures solar radiation and converts it into heat, ranging from simple flat-plate panels to concentrating troughs and evacuated-tube collectors.

Coefficient of performance (COP): The ratio of cooling output to thermal input for an absorption chiller, indicating its efficiency.

Double-effect cycle: An absorption cycle that uses two stages of heat input to improve efficiency, allowing greater heat recovery and higher COP.

Working fluid: The absorbent–refrigerant combination (e.g., lithium bromide/water or ammonia/water) that circulates within an absorption cooling system.

References

1. A review on solar-powered cooling and air-conditioning systems for building applications. Energy Reports (2022).
2. New Developments and Progress in Absorption Chillers for Solar Cooling Applications. Applied Sciences (2020).
3. Thermal solar sorption cooling systems - A review of principle, technology, and applications. Alexandria Engineering Journal (2022).