A Review on Exergy Analysis of Solar Refrigeration Technologies

Solar energy is becoming more and more useful in the modern day life in industrial, domestic and commercial sectors, because of his cleanliness from an environmental point of view and also contributes to the reduction of greenhouse effect gases such as CO2. Exergy analysis is a thermodynamic analysis technique based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which provides an alternative and illuminating means of assessing and comparing processes and systems rationally and meaningfully. Exergy analysis can assist in improving and optimizing designs. In this paper, the exergy analysis of solar thermal refrigeration cyles is reviewed. A review of the research state of art of the solar absorption and adsorption refrigeration technologies is also carried out. The cycles involved in these technologies are: open, closed, continuous and intermittent cycles. An overview of mesures of merit with regard to exergy (exergetic efficiency, exergy losses, exergy improvement and exergetic coefficient of performance) is presented. Besides, an historical and chronological view is done on the development scenario of exergy analysis in the world from 1824 until 2014. The main mathematical relations for the simulation of those cycles are presented.