Thermodynamic analysis of cooling cycles based on statistical physics modeling of ethanol adsorption isotherms.

• Physico-chemical parameters are involved through the grand canonical ensemble. • The internal energy of the WPT-AC/ethanol and M-AC/ethanol systems are calculated. • The enthalpy and entropy functions of the adsorption cooling cycles are derived. • The COP is calculated by means of statistical physics treatment • Discussion of the obtained COP for different two cycles was showed. Thermodynamic analysis of two different adsorption cooling cycles was presented; the first cycle is based on an isobaric adsorption process and the second one projects an isothermal adsorption instead of an isobaric adsorption. These cooling cycles are carried out by employing the grand canonical ensemble of the statistical physics formalism. This investigation is done for two different adsorbate/adsorbent pairs i.e. Ethanol/Waste Palm Trunk (WPT-AC) and Ethanol/Mangrove wood (M-AC). The corresponding adsorption isotherms have been fitted by statistical physics models to give a description of the adsorption process through interpretations of the evolution of the involved physico-chemical parameters, specific for this process. The results showed that the ethanol molecules have been mainly adsorbed with a multimolecular process and non-parallel to the adsorbent surface involving an aggregation process before molecules adsorption. Their adsorption energies are varying from 1.40 to 3.64 kJ/mol for WPT-AC and from 3.2 to 3.81 kJ/mol for the M-AC. These values reflected a physisorption process. The calculated internal energy values suggested the exothermicity and the spontaneity of the ethanol adsorption process. The investigation aims providing a methodology of calculation of the COP for an adsorption cooling cycle by using the statistical physics treatment. The entropy and the enthalpy functions are calculated and used to perform the thermodynamic evaluation and to calculate the coefficient of performance (COP). This parameter was found to be in the interval [0.12–0.69] for ethanol/WPT-AC and [0.11-0.6] for ethanol/M-AC for the first cycle and for the second cycle [0.15-0.81] and [0.15-0.74] respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]