A Review on Development of Heat and Mass Transfer Enhancement in Adsorption Heat Exchangers

As an environment-friendly approach for low-grade thermal utilization, adsorption technology has received more and more attention since it can have a plethora of applications, such as thermal energy storage, heat pumps and carbon dioxide capture etc. The performance of this technology is highly affected by the heat and mass transfer efficiency in the adsorption heat exchangers. This minireview is focused on recent studies and investigations on performance improvement of the adsorption heat exchangers, especially on the improvement of the thermal conductivity of adsorbents, the reduction of the thermal contact resistance, and the improvement of the heat exchange area. Discussion on the future research required to improve the heat and mass transfer performance was presented. These technologies and results are expected to provide insights and guidance for performance improvement of both adsorption heat pumps and adsorption thermal energy storage systems.