Preliminary assessment of a solar absorption air conditioning pilot plant

A solar absorption cooling system of 5 kW of cooling capacity operating with the ammonia/lithium nitrate mixture was developed at the Instituto de Energías Renovables (IER) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and then transferred and installed at the Instituto Tecnológico de Culiacán (ITC), in Culiacán, Sin. The heat was supplied to the cooling system by means of a solar collector field. The cooled water produced by the absorption systems was used to provide air conditioning. Temperatures as low as 7 °C were achieved by the absorption system with COP varying from 0.28 to 0.48. Keywords: Absorption cooling system, Solar cooling systems, Ammonia/lithium nitrat