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Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Experimental System of Solar Adsorption Refrigeration with Concentrated Collector
Published on: October 18, 2017
Cold Vapor Generation beyond the Input Solar Energy Limit
Haomin Song1, Youhai Liu1, Zhejun Liu2
1Department of Electrical Engineering The State University of New York at Buffalo Buffalo NY 14260 USA.
Abstract:
100% efficiency is the ultimate goal for all energy harvesting and conversion applications. However, no energy conversion process is reported to reach this ideal limit before. Here, an example with near perfect energy conversion efficiency in the process of solar vapor generation below room temperature is reported. Remarkably, when the operational temperature of the system is below that of the surroundings (i.e., under low density solar illumination), the total vapor generation rate is higher than the upper limit that can be produced by the input solar energy because of extra energy taken from the warmer environment. Experimental results are provided to validate this intriguing strategy under 1 sun illumination. The best measured rate is ≈2.20 kg m-2 h-1 under 1 sun illumination, well beyond its corresponding upper limit of 1.68 kg m-2 h-1 and is even faster than the one reported by other systems under 2 sun illumination.
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