International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Experimental performance analysis on an adsorption cooling system

using zeolite 13X/CaCl2 adsorbent with various operation sequences
C.Y. Tso a, K.C. Chan a, Christopher Y.H. Chao a,, C.L. Wu b,c
a

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong
Fok Ying Tung Graduate School, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Hong Kong
c
Building Energy Research Center, Guangzhou HKUST Fok Ying Tung Research Institute, Guangzhou, China
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 August 2014
Received in revised form 2 February 2015
Accepted 3 February 2015
Available online 18 February 2015
Keywords:
Adsorption cooling system
Adsorbent
Experiment
Heat recovery
Mass recovery
Zeolite

a b s t r a c t
In this study, an adsorption cooling system with a novel composite material (zeolite 13X/CaCl2) as the
adsorbent and water as the adsorbate has been built and the system performance was studied experimentally under various working conditions. A much lower desorption temperature can be utilized to desorb the composite adsorbent when compared with the zeolite 13X adsorbent. Under the same operating
condition, the SCP of the adsorption cooling system using the composite adsorbent is approximately 30%
higher than that of the same system using silica-gel as the adsorbent. Although a longer adsorption/
desorption phase time (cycle time) is required for the adsorption cooling system equipped with the composite adsorbent, it shows a better cooling performance than that of the silica gel adsorbent if a lower
chilled water temperature is required. Various operating sequences (i.e. heat recovery, mass recovery,
pre-heating and pre-cooling cycles) of the adsorption cooling system have also been investigated. The
heat and mass recovery cycle has a huge improvement on the SCP and COP of the adsorption cooling system, improving the SCP and COP by about 126% and 125%, respectively. However, heat recovery requires
tting of extra equipment to the adsorption cooling system. Therefore, mass recovery together with the
pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle is preferred, achieving the SCP and COP of about 106 W/kg and 0.16,
respectively. It is about 129% and 100% increase compared with the basic cycle.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Air conditioning accounts for more than 20% of the total energy
consumption in Hong Kong [1]. An adsorption cooling system is a
good alternative to replace the traditional vapor compression
(VC) system due to it being environmentally friendly with energy
saving potential, featuring no moving parts and lower noise level
and vibration [25]. It can be used for air conditioning in automobiles, vessels, buildings, or in the cooling apparatus of shipping
containers for food products or medical products that require
refrigeration. In comparison with absorption cooling systems, the
adsorption cooling systems have no coolant pollution and no crystallization problems [6]. In comparison with a traditional vapor
compression system, it has the advantages of simple control, low
initial investment and low noise [7,8].

Corresponding author at: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Main Academic Building, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,
Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Tel.: +852 2358 7182; fax: +852 2358 1543.
E-mail address: meyhchao@ust.hk (C.Y.H. Chao).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2015.02.005
0017-9310/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Silica gelwater as an adsorbentadsorbate working pair is

widely used in adsorption cooling systems as silica gel requires a
relatively low desorption temperature, about 70 C, while water
has a very high latent heat of vaporization, about 2260 kJ/kg. This
working pair is also non-toxic and stable. However, the adsorption
capacity and adsorption rate of the silica gel is very low compared
to some newly developed composite adsorbent materials. Also, the
low adsorption capacity and adsorption rate lead to a poor coefcient of performance (COP) and low specic cooling power (SCP)
of silica gelwater based adsorption cooling systems [912]. As a
result, the wide use of adsorption cooling technology is not yet
possible, even though adsorption cooling systems are thought to
be very promising for future application in solar cooling and waste
heat recovery [1215].
As previously mentioned, the performance of an adsorption
cooling system highly depends on the properties of the adsorbent,
so making use of a composite adsorbent in the adsorption cooling
system is one trend to be developed to enhance the COP and SCP.
Therefore, many researchers have devoted their work to develop
different types of composite adsorbents for adsorption cooling
technology. Saha et al. [16] investigated a two-bed adsorption chil-

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Nomenclature
Cp,water
COP
_
m
P
Q
SCP
T
t
V
W
X

specic heat capacity of water [J/kg K]

coefcient of performance []
heat transfer uid (water) mass ow rate [kg/min]
pressure [Pa]
cooling capacity [W]
specic cooling power [W/kg]
temperature [oC]
time [s]
valve []
mass [kg]
amount adsorbed (mass of water vapor per mass of dry
adsorbent) []

Subscripts
ads
adsorption

ler using a composite adsorbent called SWS-1L (CaCl2 conned in

silica gel). SWS-1L has a high water adsorption capacity, which
shows a favorable characteristic as an adsorbent for adsorption
cooling systems [17]. Chan et al. [10] developed a zeolite 13X/CaCl2
composite adsorbent. A large difference in equilibrium water
uptake, 0.4 kg/kg, between 25 C and 75 C under 870 Pa was
recorded for this zeolite 13X/CaCl2 composite adsorbent impregnated in 40 wt% CaCl2 solution. This was 400% of that of zeolite
13X and 233% of that of silica gel under the same condition. Additionally, the ideal COP and average SCP were estimated. However,
the ideal COP and average SCP estimated were based on the
adsorption properties of the composite adsorbent, and calculated
by numerical simulation. With different simulation conditions,
the values of COP and SCP obtained could be largely varied. It is
not known whether the high COP and SCP can still be reached in
the actual adsorption/desorption cooling cycle by experimental
approach, rather than by numerical approach.
In this paper, the aim is to build a thermally driven adsorption
cooling system using newly developed composite adsorbent (zeolite 13X/CaCl2)water as the adsorbentadsorbate working pair
and to investigate the performance of the cooling system under
various operating conditions, such as the desorption temperature,
phase time, cooling water inlet temperature, evaporating temperature and chilled water mass ow rate. A comparison is made
between using silica gel and zeolite 13X/CaCl2 composite as adsorbent to help conclude the suitability of this newly developed composite adsorbent for use in adsorption cooling systems. Besides,
various operating sequences, such as heat recovery, mass recovery,
and pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle, of the adsorption cooling
system have also been investigated. The SCP is the major gure
of merit. At the end of this paper, a comparison with other similar
studies is also addressed.

amb
chill
cond
cool
cycle
des
eva
hr
hot
max
mr
phase
in
out

ambient
chilled water
condenser/condensation
cooling water in adsorber/desorber
cycle
desorption
evaporator/evaporation
heat recovery
hot water
maximum
mass recovery
adsorption/desorption phase time
inlet
outlet

results in low vibration, simple mechanics, high reliability and a

very long life cycle [2224].
As the adsorbent cannot be circulated [25], the system only produces cooling intermittently in the adsorption step. In order to provide a quasi-continuous cold production, a laboratory prototype of
a double-bed adsorption cooling system was designed and built,
and its performance was analyzed experimentally under different
working conditions.
2.1. Basic operation phases of the adsorption cooling systems
The basic cycle of operating the double-bed adsorption cooling
system consists of two phases. In phase I, adsorption takes place in
adsorber A, and desorption takes place in adsorber B. In phase II,
desorption takes in adsorber A, and adsorption takes place in
adsorber B. A schematic diagram of the adsorption cooling system
is shown in Fig. 1.
In phase I, valves V1, V2, V5, V6, V7, V8, V11 and V12 are
opened, while the other valves remain to be closed. In the adsorptionevaporation process, water in the chilled water tank evaporates at the evaporation temperature, Teva, and the latent heat,
Qeva is removed from the chilled water. The evaporated vapor is
adsorbed by the composite adsorbent in adsorber A, where cooling
water removes the adsorption heat, Qads. The desorptioncondensation process takes place at pressure Pcond. Adsorber B is heated
to the temperature, Tdes, by Qdes, provided by the hot water. The
desorbed water vapor is cooled to temperature (Tcond) in the condenser by cooling water (tap water), which removes the heat, Qcond.
The condensed water comes back to the evaporator via the U-tube
connecting the condenser and chilled water tank to complete the
cycle. Phase II is similar to phase I, but the adsorber A is heated
to desorb and adsorber B is cooled to adsorb. Thus, valves V1, V3,
V4, V6, V9, V10, V13 and V14 are opened while the other valves
remain to be closed.

2. Working principle of the adsorption cooling system

2.2. Heat recovery cycle
Adsorption cooling systems can be compared to conventional
vapor compression cooling systems for air conditioners, chillers
or refrigerators in which the electric powered mechanical compressor is replaced by an adsorber. The system can be powered
by a rather low driven temperature, e.g. waste heat or solar energy,
which makes it attractive for saving electrical energy [1821].
Besides, the adsorption cooling system can be operated with minimal moving parts; only solenoid vacuum valves are used. These

After desorption phase, the temperature of the corresponding

adsorber is high, while the other adsorber is cooled after adsorption phase. The heat recovery can recover some thermal energy
from the heated adsorber to the cooled adsorber during phase
switching between adsorption and desorption. The heat transfer
uid (water) ows through two adsorbers to transfer the heat from
the heated adsorber to the cooled adsorber. By circulating the heat

C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

345

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the laboratory prototype adsorption cooling system. [Remark: the thinner lines represent the water pipeline for heating and cooling the
adsorbers, while the thicker lines represent the low pressure pipeline for water vapor or condensed water.]

transfer uid between the two adsorbers adiabatically, the energy

efciency can be increased signicantly [2629]. Valves V15 and
V16 are opened while the other valves remain to be closed while
operating the heat recovery cycle.
2.3. Mass recovery cycle
At the end of the desorption phase, the pressure of the heated
adsorber is higher than the cooled adsorber at the end of the
adsorption phase. The pressure of the cooled adsorber is equal
to that of the evaporator, while the pressure of the heated adsorber is equal to that of the condenser. After that, the high pressure adsorber needs to be cooled and depressurized while the
low pressure one needs to be heated and pressurized for the
next phase. Before the next phase, mass recovery can be operated. In mass recovery, the two adsorbers are interconnected
directly by opening valves V2, V3, V4 and V5, allowing the water
vapor to ow from the high-pressure adsorber to the low pressure one. In this phase, no adsorbers are connected with the
evaporator or condenser. The pressure of the heated adsorber
decreases due to the outward water vapor ow, causing further
desorption of the adsorbent. Meanwhile, the pressure of the
cooled adsorber increases due to the inward water vapor ow
and caused further adsorption. The mass recovery can further
dry the heated adsorber after desorption and reduce the internal
pressure.
The process is conducted until the two adsorbers reached the
same pressure. Then the valves are closed and the adsorbers are
ready for the next phase. The dryer adsorber can adsorb more
water vapor in the next adsorption phase. The mass recovery process is expected to accelerate the circulation and enhance the
cycle cooling power [2628,3033], as it only involves direct
mass ow and the pressure balance is much faster than the temperature balance (heat recovery process) via the heat-transfer
medium.

2.4. Pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle

The pre-heating and pre-cooling processes are pre-conditioning
processes. After the adsorption phase, the pressure inside the
adsorber is low. If it is connected to the condenser immediately,
water in the condenser will evaporate and ow to the adsorber.
This will increase the water uptake of the adsorber and lower the
system performance. Besides, a similar drawback will appear on
the desorption side. Thus, the pressures of the two adsorbers have
to be higher than that of the condenser or lower than the evaporator before connection. The cooling water is connected to the
desorber (which becomes the adsorber in the next phase), and
the hot water is connected to the adsorber (which becomes the
desorber in the next phase). When the pressure of the desorber
and adsorber are nearly equal to the pressures of the condenser
and evaporator respectively, the corresponding system components will be connected. The PTW diagrams of basic, heat recovery, mass recovery and pre-heating and pre-cooling cycles are also
presented in Fig. 2. The adsorbentadsorbate working pair used is
silica gel and water.
3. Description of the adsorption cooling system prototype
The adsorber is the most important element of an adsorption
cooling system. Because of the poor thermal conductivity of the
adsorbent materials commonly used in adsorption cooling systems, the heat and mass transfer abilities of the adsorbers that
affect the performance of the system should be considered carefully during the design of the adsorbers. Therefore, in this study,
each adsorber consisted of 14 cylindrical shell units covered with
a stainless steel metal screen mesh with a pore size of about
74 lm. Fig. 3a shows a photograph of a cylindrical shell unit. The
adsorbents were packed between the circular ns. Each adsorber
was lled with 3.5 kg of composite adsorbent (zeolite 13X/CaCl2)
or 9 kg of silica gel adsorbent. The average particle size of zeolite

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C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

Fig. 2. PTW diagrams of the studied operating cycles (a) basic cycle; (b) heat recovery cycle; (c) mass recovery cycle; (d) pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle. [Remarks: red:
desorption phase; blue: adsorption phase; green: heat recovery phase; orange: mass recovery phase; purple: pre-heating and pre-cooling phase.] (For interpretation of the
references to colour in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

13X/CaCl2 is about 2 lm (powder form) while the size of silica gel

adsorbent is about 0.422 mm (irregular pellet form). As the
adsorption cooling system does not consist of any vibrating components, it operates stably. This implies that the composite adsorbents did not leak from the adsorbent bed. Two thermocouples
were located in each adsorber to record the temperature of the
adsorbents. 14 cylindrical shell units were put together into a large
cylindrical vacuum chamber (adsorber), connected in series by
copper piping as shown in Fig. 3b. A photograph of the whole
adsorption cooling system prototype is also shown in Fig. 4.
A 2.2 kW immersion electrical heater was inserted into the hot
water tank in order to generate the heat for the desorption process.
An electrical heater was used instead of solar thermal or a waste
heat capturing system because the main interest of this study is
the performance of different adsorbents under various well-controlled operating conditions. A PID temperature controller was
used to control the temperature inside the hot water tank to prevent overheating and to control the desorption temperature (hot
water inlet temperature) for different operating conditions.
The standard operating conditions for the adsorption cooling
system using zeolite 13X/CaCl2 as the adsorbent are shown in
Table 1, and also for various conditions as listed in Table 2. Equation (1) is used to calculate the COP of the experimental prototype
for different operating conditions. Specically, this refers as the
time-average COP:

R tcycle Q chill 
COP

Q des

R tcycle
0

dt

dt
;

where Qchill and Qdes represent the cooling output power and thermal input power, respectively, tcycle is the cycle time, including
two adsorption/desorption phase time as well as two recovery cycle
time (i.e. heat, mass and pre-heating and pre-cooling recovery
cycles). They are calculated from the measured water ow rates,
the isobaric specic heat capacities, and inlet and outlet temperatures of the chilled water tank (evaporator) and hot water tank as
shown in Eqs. (2) and (3) below, respectively:



_ chill cp;water T chill;in  T chill;out ;
Q chill m



_ hot cp;water T hot;in  T hot;out ;
Q des m

_ chill and m
_ hot represent the mass ow rates of chilled water
where m
and hot water, respectively. Equation (4) is used to calculate the SCP
of the adsorption cooling systems:

SCP

_ chill cp;water
m


R tcycle 
T chill;in  T chill;out dt
0
;
Wt cycle

where W represents the weight of the composite adsorbent (zeolite

13X/CaCl2) or the weight of silica gel adsorbent.

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C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

Fig. 4. A prototype of the adsorption cooling system. [Remarks: 1: cooling water

tank; 2: isothermal water circulator; 3: chilled water tank (evaporator); 4: adsorber
A; 5: adsorber B; 6: hot water tank; 7: condenser; 8: control system].

Table 1
Standard operating conditions for the adsorption cooling system.
Fig. 3. Photographs of the adsorbent bed and adsorber.

4. System optimization
The performance of the prototype was investigated experimentally under various conditions. Since the thermal input power is
obtained by the temperature difference between the inlet and outlet of the hot water tank, heat loss to the ambient environment is
included in the calculation. The energy loss is mainly from the
adsorbers, hot and cooling water tanks and piping system through
which the heat transfer uid (water) circulates. A verication test
was conducted in order to conrm the repeatability of the adsorption cooling system. The test was repeated three times, and it is
found that the SCP and COP were obtained at about
84.18 3.35 W/kg and 0.293 0.006, respectively. This implies
that the adsorption cooling system built can provide a repeatable
result. Fig. 5 shows experimental temperature proles of the heat
transfer uid at a typical operating condition. The delivered chilled
water outlet temperature is always below the inlet temperature
throughout the whole cycle, showing that the cooling process is
steady and successfully produces the cooling effect.

4.1. Effect of desorption temperature on the SCP and COP

The desorption temperature is one of the major factors affecting
the performance of adsorption cooling systems. Fig. 6 shows the
effect of the desorption temperatures on the SCP and COP. Theoretically, the COP should increase with desorption temperature up to
a specic temperature and thereafter remain unchanged as the
temperature increases. It is shown in Fig. 6 that both COPs (silica

Parameters

Symbol

Value

Unit

Hot water inlet (desorption) temperature

Adsorber cooling water inlet temperature
Chilled water inlet temperature
Chilled water mass ow rate
Hot water mass ow rate
Cooling water mass ow rate
Adsorption/desorption phase time
Mass recovery time
Heat recovery time

Thot,in
Tcool,in
Tchill,in
_ chill
m
_ hot
m
_ cool
m
tphase
tmr
thr

85
31
14
3.6
8
8
15
10
50

C
C
C
kg/min
kg/min
kg/min
mins
seconds
seconds

gel adsorbent and composite adsorbent) increase with desorption

temperatures lower than 70 C, but decrease for desorption temperatures higher than 70 C, particularly the COP value of an
adsorption cooling system using silica gel as the adsorbent. This
can be attributed to an increase in heat loss at higher desorption
temperatures. For the lower desorption temperatures, the heat loss
is smaller compared with the higher desorption temperatures. The
result of both SCPs (silica gel adsorbent and composite adsorbent)
are in good agreement with the prediction, increasing monotonically with the desorption temperature from 55 C to 95 C. Since
water vapor is desorbed faster at the higher desorption temperature, the adsorbent is drier so the driving force for adsorption is
higher, allowing more water vapor to be adsorbed during the next
adsorption process. In other words, the higher the desorption temperature, the better the specic cooling power (SCP) of the adsorption cooling system is. However, it should be emphasized that the
desorption temperature depends on the real situation. Since the
intensity of sun light is not steady, the achievable hot water temperature may not be high. Therefore, standard hot water inlet temperature was selected to be 85 C.

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C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

Table 2
Varied operating conditions for the adsorption cooling system.
Parameters

Symbol

Value

Unit

Hot water inlet (desorption) temperature

Adsorber cooling water inlet temperature
Chilled water inlet temperature
Chilled water mass ow rate
Adsorption/desorption phase time

Thot,in
Tcool,in
Tchill,in
_ chill
m
tphase

55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95

18, 22, 27, 31
8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20
1.6, 3.6, 5.6, 7.6
5, 7.5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30

C
C
C
kg/min
mins

Fig. 5. Experimental heat transfer uid temperature proles. [Remark: zeolite 13X/CaCl2water as the adsorbentadsorbate working pair; 85 C desorption temperature,
22 C cooling water inlet temperature; 25 min adsorption/desorption phase time; 6 kg/min hot water mass ow rate; 2 kg/min cooling water mass ow rate; 3.6 kg/min
chilled water mass ow rate; 10 C chilled water inlet temperature; 50 s heat recovery time and 10 s mass recovery time.]

absorbent (CaCl2) while the adsorbate (water vapor) is adsorbed

on the surface of the adsorbent (silica gel). The intermolecular
force between the chemical absorbent (CaCl2) and absorbate
(water vapor) is much larger than that between the physical adsorbent (silica gel) and adsorbate (water vapor). As a result, the COP of
the adsorption cooling system using the composite adsorbent is
smaller than that using the silica gel adsorbent. However, it is
interesting to note that the thermal energy input should actually
come from renewable energy (e.g. solar energy or waste heat)
which is free of charge or from natural resources. Therefore, the
thermal COP values shown in this study are just for reference
and comparison with other studies. SCP is indeed a very important
parameter which indicates how large the adsorption cooling system is and the cooling power of the adsorption cooling system.
Fig. 6. Effect of desorption temperature on the SCP and COP. [Remark: 31 C cooling
water inlet temperature; 15 min adsorption/desorption phase time for both
adsorbents; 8 kg/min hot and cooling water mass ow rate; 3.6 kg/min chilled
water mass ow rate; 14 C chilled water inlet temperature; 50 s heat recovery time
and 10 s mass recovery time.]

It should also be noted that the SCP of an adsorption cooling

system using the composite adsorbent (zeolite 13X/CaCl2) is on
average 30% higher than that of the silica gel adsorbent since the
adsorption capacity of the composite adsorbent is larger than that
of the silica gel adsorbent, allowing more water vapor to be
adsorbed during the adsorption process. However, the COP of the
adsorption cooling system using the composite adsorbent is about
60% lower than that of the silica gel adsorbent because the composite adsorbent includes calcium chloride, a chemical absorbent.
The chemical absorbent (e.g. CaCl2) requires a larger amount of
thermal energy for desorption than the physical adsorbent (e.g. silica gel) since the absorbate (water vapor) is absorbed inside the

4.2. Effect of adsorption/desorption phase time on the SCP and COP

Fig. 7 shows the effect of adsorption/desorption phase time on
the SCP and COP. All system parameters were remained the same
as shown in Table 1, except for the adsorption/desorption phase
time which was considered as the varied operating parameter in
this section. Besides, it should be pointed out that the adsorption/desorption phase time was controlled by a timer, instead of
by changing the hot water mass ow rate, etc. From Fig. 7, it is
shown that the SCP values of using composite adsorbent are higher
than those of the silica gel adsorbent, but the most optimized
adsorption/desorption phase time is longer than that of the silica
gel adsorbent. 25 min is the best adsorption/desorption phase time
if the composite adsorbent is utilized in the adsorption cooling system as the adsorbent, while 15 min is the best adsorption/desorption phase time if silica gel is utilized. This might be because of the
different particle sizes of the adsorbents. As mentioned above, the
composite adsorbent has a much smaller particle size, 2 lm in

C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

Fig. 7. Effect of adsorption/desorption phase time on the SCP and COP. [Remark:
85 C desorption temperature; 31 C cooling water inlet temperature; 8 kg/min hot
and cooling water mass ow rate; 3.6 kg/min chilled water mass ow rate; 14 C
chilled water inlet temperature; 50 s heat recovery time and 10 s mass recovery
time.]

average, while the particle size of silica gel is about 1 mm. The
water vapor diffusion in adsorbers containing loose grains depends
on the relative contributions of intra-particle mass transfer, interparticle mass transfer and several heat transfer resistances. The
path of intra-particle mass transfer is longer as the grain size is
increased. Thus, for a relatively large grain size, the intra-particle
diffusional resistance is likely to exceed the inter-particle one. On
the other hand, for a relatively small grain size, the inter-particle
diffusional resistance is likely to be dominant over the intra-particle one. The intra-particle diffusion process of the composite adsorbent is faster than that of the silica gel adsorbent, but the interparticle diffusion process is much slower than that of the silica
gel adsorbent. Thus, the overall water vapor diffusion in the composite adsorbent is slower than that in the silica gel adsorbent,
leading to a slower water vapor sorption rate which means a
longer required phase time if the zeolite 13X/CaCl2 is utilized in
the adsorption cooling system as the adsorbent.
The difference in adsorption heat is another reason for the difference in cycle time. The average adsorption heat of silica gel, zeolite 13X and CaCl2 with water vapor as the adsorbate are 46.0, 79.4
[34] and 53.4 kJ/mol [35], respectively. Zeolite 13X and CaCl2 have
higher heat of adsorption than silica gel, thus more thermal energy
is required to desorb the water vapor during the desorption process. Similarly, a longer time is required to cool down the adsorbent during the adsorption process. This results in a longer
adsorption/desorption phase time for the composite adsorbent.
On the other hand, from Fig. 7, it should also be noted that for
shorter adsorption/desorption phase times, the desorption process
is incomplete, leading to diminish the adsorption capacity of both
adsorbents. As a result, the SCP is low at a shorter phase time. For
longer phase times, the SCP decreases due to the rapid diminution
of adsorption capacity of the adsorbents during the last few minutes. It has also been mentioned in Alam KCA et al., study [36].
4.3. Effect of cooling water inlet temperature, chilled water mass ow
rate and chilled water inlet temperature on the SCP and COP
Fig. 8 shows the effect of the cooling water inlet temperature on
the SCP and COP. The phase time was selected at the most optimized condition for each adsorbent (i.e. 15 min for silica gel adsorbent, 25 min for composite adsorbent), while the remaining
operating parameters were the same with each other. The results
indicate that the SCP values of using the composite adsorbent are
lower than those using the silica gel adsorbent when the cooling
water inlet temperature is below 29 C. However, a better SCP is

349

Fig. 8. Effect of cooling water inlet temperature on the SCP and COP.

Fig. 9. Effect of chilled water mass ow rate on the SCP and COP.

obtained for the composite adsorbent when a higher cooling water

inlet temperature is supplied to the adsorber (i.e. >29 C). Therefore, it could be concluded that a lower cooling water inlet temperature supply to the adsorber is of more benet to the silica gel
adsorbent than that of the composite adsorbent. This is due to a
higher dependence on adsorption temperature of silica gel than
the zeolite 13X/CaCl2 composite adsorbent. A more stable cooling
production can be achieved by utilizing the composite adsorbent.
The effect of chilled water mass ow rate on the SCP and COP
were also studied as shown in Fig. 9. Similarly, the phase time
was selected at the most optimized condition for each adsorbent,
while the remaining operating parameters were the same with
each other. It is found that the most optimized chilled water mass
ow rates, using the composite adsorbent and silica gel, were at
about 3.6 kg/min and 5 kg/min, respectively. Besides, it shows that
the SCP results of using the silica gel adsorbent are always higher
than those of the composite adsorbent at any chilled water mass
ow rates, because the cooling water inlet temperature utilized
was at about 22 C for both adsorbents. As previously mentioned,
a lower cooling water inlet temperature supply to the adsorber is
of more benet to the silica gel adsorbent than the composite
adsorbent.
Last, Fig. 10 shows the effect of chilled water inlet temperature
(evaporating temperature) on the SCP and COP. The phase time and
the chilled water mass ow rate were selected at the most optimized condition for each adsorbent, but the remaining operating
parameters were the same with each other. It is found that the
adsorption cooling system equipped with the composite adsorbent
showed a better cooling performance than that of the silica gel

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C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

Fig. 10. Effect of chilled water inlet (evaporating) temperature on the SCP and COP.

adsorbent if a lower chilled water temperature is required. For

example, at the chilled water inlet temperature of about 8 C, the
SCP value using the composite adsorbent is achieved at about
63 W/kg, while an SCP of around 10 W/kg was obtained from the
adsorption cooling system equipped with the silica gel adsorbent.
This is about 530% improvement. Therefore, the composite adsorbent is highly recommended for use in an adsorption cooling system if a lower chilled water temperature is required.

5. Operating sequences study

Different operating parameters have been discussed above.
However, it should be emphasized that the mass recovery phase

time was randomly set at about 10 s, while the heat recovery phase
time was selected at about 50 s in Section 4. These two phase times
have not been optimized. Neither has the pre-heating nor the precooling phase been included.
Before studying the effect of the heat recovery cycle, mass
recovery cycle, and pre-heating and pre-cooling cycles, the basic
cycle was investigated to obtain the reference performance of the
system for fair comparisons. The varied operating sequence for
the adsorption cooling system is shown in Table 3. Basic cycle, heat
recovery cycle, mass recovery cycle, pre-heating and pre-cooling
cycle and their combinations were included. The zeolite 13X/
CaCl2water was selected as the adsorbentadsorbate working
pair. The desorption temperature was set at 85 C. The cooling
water inlet temperature supply to the adsorbers was controlled
at 22 C; while the evaporating temperature was set at 14 C, provided by the isothermal water circulator. The adsorption/desorption phase time was 25 min. The mass ow rate of the hot water
and cooling water was set at 6 kg/min and 2 kg/min, respectively.
And, the mass ow rate of the chilled water was 3.6 kg/min. This
typical operating condition was the same for running nine different
sequences as shown in Table 3, and the COP and SCP under the
basic cycle were about 0.08 and 46.4 W/kg, respectively. The
experimental temperature proles of the heat transfer uid
(water) inlets and outlets in different locations are shown in
Fig. 11. It is shown that large variations of outlet temperatures
are observed during the transition between Phase I and Phase II
when compared with the outlet temperatures as shown in Fig. 5.
This indicates the thermal energy from the heated adsorber is
wasted, and can be recovered by a heat recovery process.
On the other hand, from Fig. 11, it is also observed that the temperature difference between chilled water inlet and outlet is small,

Table 3
Varied operating sequences for the adsorption cooling system [I: Phase I; II: Phase II; HR: heat recovery; MR:
mass recovery; HMR: heat and mass recovery; Pre-HC: pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle].
Operating sequences
Basic cycle
Heat recovery cycle
Mass recovery cycle
Heat and mass recovery cycle
Pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle
MR together with pre-HC cycle
MR and then pre-HC cycle
HR and then pre-HC cycle
HMR and then pre-HC cycle

I ? II ? . . .
I ? HR ? II ? HR ? I . . .
I ? MR ? II ? MR ? I . . .
I ? HMR ? II ? HMR ? I . . .
I ? Pre-HC ? II ? Pre-HC ? I . . .
I ? MR and Pre-HC ? II ? MR and Pre-HC ? I . . .
I ? MR ? Pre-HC ? II ? MR ? Pre-HC ? I . . .
I ? HR ? Pre-HC ? II ? HR ? Pre-HC ? I . . .
I ? HMR ? Pre-HC ? II ? HMR ? Pre-HC ? I . . .

Fig. 11. Experimental heat transfer uid temperature proles of the basic cycle. [Remark: zeolite 13X/CaCl2water as the adsorbentadsorbate working pair; 85 C desorption
temperature, 22 C cooling water inlet temperature; 25 min adsorption/desorption phase time; 6 kg/min hot water mass ow rate; 2 kg/min cooling water mass ow rate;
3.6 kg/min chilled water mass ow rate; 14 C chilled water inlet temperature; no heat, mass and pre-heating and pre-cooling cycles.]

C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

averaging at about 1 C. The small temperature difference is not

only because of the fast chilled water mass ow rate and/or the
longer adsorption/desorption phase time, but also the thermal performance of the adsorbent bed and/or the overall design of the
adsorption cooling system. As the focus of this study is on the comparison between using silica gel as the adsorbent and zeolite 13X/
CaCl2 as the adsorbent in a particular adsorption cooling system
prototype, the temperature difference between chilled water inlet
and outlet is not the major concern in this study.

5.1. Effect of heat recovery cycle and mass recovery cycle on the SCP
and COP
As the heat recovery phase time is the most important parameter, different heat recovery phase times were set to study the
effect of heat recovery. From Fig. 12(a), it can be seen that a longer
heat recovery phase time might not give the highest value of SCP
and COP, because of the relatively larger heat loss for a longer heat
recovery phase time. Besides, there is no cooling effect produced
during the heat recovery phase. In other words, a longer heat
recovery time diminishes the cooling performance of the adsorption cooling system. The SCP and COP value are also low when
the heat recovery phase time is short, because the heat is not
recovered effectively and completely during the short heat recovery phase time. Therefore, there exists the best heat recovery phase
time which is around 80 s for this adsorption cooling system pro-

351

totype. Under this heat recovery phase time, the COP and SCP were
recorded at about 0.15 and 67 W/kg, respectively.
Fig. 12(b) shows the effect of mass recovery process time on the
SCP and COP of an adsorption cooling system. Similar to the heat
recovery phase time, mass recovery phase time also shows a peak
for both SCP and COP. The peak is at around 11 s and this is the best
mass recovery phase time for this adsorption cooling system prototype. So, the longer the mass recovery time, the poorer the cooling performance of the adsorption cooling system is. This is
because no cooling effect is actually produced during the mass
recovery process, implying the need for a shorter mass recovery
time. However, a shorter mass recovery time might not give a better cooling performance due to an incomplete mass recovery. As a
result, there exists an optimum value for the mass recovery cycle
time. Under this mass recovery phase time, the COP approached
0.14; while the SCP was recorded at 79 W/kg. It should be noted
that these COP and SCP values do not involve any heat recovery
cycle, and only mass recovery cycle is included during the phase
change. Therefore, a combined heat and mass recovery cycle inuence is studied to optimize the system performance.

5.2. Effect of heat and mass recovery cycle on the SCP and COP
As discussed previously, the best durations for heat recovery
and mass recovery are 80 s and 11 s, respectively. The optimized
duration for heat and mass recovery, however, may be different
from these two values. Thus, the duration of mass recovery was
adopted to perform heat and mass recovery in the rst step. After
maximizing the SCP for this specic duration of heat recovery, the
duration of mass recovery was changed. In the experimental procedure, both heat and mass recovery processes were conducted for
the rst few seconds. After that, the mass recovery process was
stopped while heat recovery was conducted for the remaining
duration. A combined heat and mass recovery cycle was performed
by this sequence, and the results are shown in Fig. 13. From
Fig. 13(a), the best SCP is achieved with a heat recovery cycle of
60 s. This duration was then used to calculate the result in
Fig. 13(b). The best performance occurred when heat recovery
were conducted for 60 s, while the optimized mass recovery duration was 12 s. The maximum COP and SCP were found to be 0.18
and 104 W/kg respectively. An improvement of about 126% for
the SCP and 125% for the COP was made when compared to the
basic cycle.

5.3. Effect of pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle on the SCP and COP

Fig. 12. Effect of heat recovery cycle and mass recovery cycle on the system
performance. [Remark: green circle: SCP of basic cycle; red circle: COP of basic
cycle.] (For interpretation of the references to colour in this gure legend, the reader
is referred to the web version of this article.)

The effect of pre-heating and pre-cooling is shown in Fig. 14.

The maximum SCP was found at 180 s, showing an improvement
of 43% to 66 W/kg. The reason for the peak of the SCP can be found
in the detailed pressure prole during pre-heating and pre-cooling,
shown in Fig. 15. The pressure of adsorber A decreases from about
3500 Pa and is lower than that of the evaporator when the preheating and pre-cooling occurs for about 180 s. Thus, there is no
need to continue the process beyond this point. It should also be
pointed out that the duration shown in Fig. 14 is the pre-cooling
time since the pre-heating process required a longer duration than
that of the pre-cooling process. From Fig. 15, at about 6580 s, the
pressure of adsorber A was nearly equal to that of the evaporator,
but the pressure of adsorber B was still lower than the condenser
pressure. In the following experiment and discussion, the pre-heating and pre-cooling are of different durations. Pre-heating is
stopped when the pressure of the desorber is higher than that of
the condenser; while pre-cooling is stopped when the pressure
of the adsorber is lower than that of the evaporator.

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C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

operating sequences. The rst is to perform the mass recovery

cycle simultaneously with the pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle,
while the other is to perform the mass recovery cycle before conducting the pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle. Fig. 16(a) shows
the effect of the mass recovery cycle together with the pre-heating
and pre-cooling cycle at the same time (the rst sequence) on the
SCP and COP. Mass recovery is completed rst since the mass ow
is quick, while the pre-cooling process is stopped after about 160 s
until the pressure of the adsorber is lower than that of the evaporator. Also, the pre-heating process is conducted for another 90 s
after the pre-cooling cycle is completed. Under this operating
sequence, a maximum value of 106 W/kg was found at the mass
recovery time of 13 s, which was improved by 130% compared with
the basic cycle. The COP was also improved by 100% to 0.16.
Fig. 16(b) shows the effect of mass recovery and then pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle (the second sequence) on the SCP and
COP. It is similar to the rst sequence. The major difference is that
the mass recovery cycle is not conducted simultaneously with the
pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle. The mass recovery cycle runs
alone for several seconds, and then the pre-heating and pre-cooling
cycle starts. Similarly, the pre-cooling cycle is stopped when the
pressure of the adsorber is lower than that of the evaporator; while
the pre-heating cycle is stopped when the pressure of the desorber
is higher than that of the condenser. From Fig. 16(b), it is found
that a maximum value of SCP exists at about 20 s mass recovery
time, achieving an SCP value of about 96 W/kg, while the COP
was estimated at about 0.14. When the mass recovery conducted
together with pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle (the rst
sequence) is compared to the mass recovery followed by the preheating and pre-cooling cycle (the second sequence), the former
shows a better cooling performance. In detail, 10% improvement
for the SCP and 14% improvement for the COP were obtained. This
is simply because a longer time is required for the second
sequence, and no cooling effect is produced in this duration.
Fig. 13. Effect of duration of heat recovery cycle and mass recovery cycle in the heat
and mass recovery cycle on the system performance. [Remark: green circle: SCP of
basic cycle; red circle: COP of basic cycle; green rhombus: SCP of 60 s xed heat
recovery cycle; Red rhombus: COP of 60 s xed heat recovery cycle.] (For
interpretation of the references to colour in this gure legend, the reader is
referred to the web version of this article.)

5.5. Effect of heat recovery and then pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle
on the SCP and COP
Fig. 17 shows the effect of heat recovery followed by the preheating and pre-cooling cycle on the SCP and COP. Similar to the
mass recovery followed by the pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle,
the heat recovery cycle is rst conducted, followed by the preheating and pre-cooling cycle. Found from Fig. 17, the shorter the
heat recovery time, the better the cooling performance is. This is
again because of no cooling effect produced during these cycles.
Under this operating sequence, the SCP and COP of the adsorption
cooling system were obtained at about 86 W/kg and 0.16, respectively, showing an 87% improvement for the SCP and 100%
improvement for the COP.
5.6. Effect of heat recovery, mass recovery, and pre-heating and precooling cycle on the SCP and COP

Fig. 14. Effect of pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle on the SCP and COP. [Remark:
green circle: SCP of basic cycle; red circle: COP of basic cycles.] (For interpretation of
the references to colour in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)

5.4. Effect of mass recovery and pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle on

the SCP and COP
Mass recovery cycle is performed in sequence with the preheating and pre-cooling cycle. Indeed, it includes two different

Lastly, heat recovery, mass recovery and pre-heating and precooling cycle are studied. This is the most complicated operating
sequence. Initially, the heat and mass recovery are conducted
together. As discussed above, the best performance occurred when
heat recovery were conducted for 60 s, together with mass recovery for 12 s. In other words, the mass recovery is stopped after
12 s, while the heat recovery kept running for 48 s more. After that,
the pre-heating and pre-cooling phase was conducted accordingly.
The adsorber is connected with the evaporator to conduct the
adsorption process, while the desorber is connected with the condenser to perform the desorption process, when the pre-heating
and pre-cooling phase is completed. Under this operating
sequence, the SCP obtained was about 92 W/kg and the COP

C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

353

Fig. 15. Pressure prole during pre-heating and pre-cooling process.

Fig. 17. Effect of heat recovery and then pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle on the
SCP and COP. [Remark: green circle: SCP of basic cycle; red circle: COP of basic
cycle; green rhombus: SCP of pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle; red rhombus: COP
of pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle]. (For interpretation of the references to colour
in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

1. The heat recovery cycle (60 s) together with the mass recovery
cycle (12 s) and;
2. The mass recovery cycle (13 s) together with pre-heating and
pre-cooling cycle.

Fig. 16. Effect of mass recovery cycle and pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle on the
system performance. [Remark: green circle: SCP of basic cycle; red circle: COP of
basic cycle; green rhombus: SCP of pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle; red rhombus:
COP of pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle.] (For interpretation of the references to
colour in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

achieved was about 0.17 as presented in Table 4. Additionally,

Table 4 also shows the results of previously discussed operating
sequences. It can be seen that the best two operating sequences
for this adsorption cooling system prototype are:

For the former, the SCP and COP obtained were about 104 W/kg
and 0.18, respectively, while for the latter, the SCP and COP
obtained were about 106 W/kg and 0.16, respectively. It is interesting to note that more equipment, such as water pumps and solenoid valves are required to conduct the extra heat recovery
phase which means increasing the cost of the adsorption cooling
system. Therefore, mass recovery together with the pre-heating
and pre-cooling cycle is preferred, where the SCP and COP can
make a 130% and 100% increase compared to that of the basic cycle.
Last, it is found that the effect of only performing the pre-heating
and pre-cooling cycle was not that signicant when compared to
mass recovery and/or heat recovery cycles.

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C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

Table 4
Comparisons among all the operating sequences.
Operating Sequences

SCP (W/kg)

DSCP

COP

DCOP

Basic cycle (BC)

BC + mass recovery (MR) (11 s)
BC + heat recovery (HR) (80 s)
BC + pre-heating and pre-cooling cycle (Pre-HC) (180 s)
BC + HR (60 s) together with MR (12 s)
BC + MR (13 s) together with Pre-HC
BC + MR (20 s) and then Pre-HC
BC + HR (20 s) and then Pre-HC
BC + HR (60 s) together with MR (12 s) and then Pre-HC

46
79
67
66
104
106
96
86
92

N.A.
72%
46%
43%
126%
129%
109%
87%
100%

0.08
0.14
0.15
0.13
0.18
0.16
0.14
0.16
0.17

N.A.
75%
88%
63%
125%
100%
75%
100%
113%

Table 5
The SCP comparison between this study and other similar studies [Remark: the cycle time shown in this table means a complete cycle, including two adsorption/desorption phase
time as well as two recovery cycle time (i.e. heat, mass and/or pre-heating and pre-cooling recovery cycles].

Zhang et al. [37]

Wang et al. [38]
Liu et al. [39]
Wang et al. [4]
Chang et al. [40]
Chen et al. [41]
Vasta et al. [42]
Gong et al. [43]
Freni et al. [44]
Lu and Wang [45]
This study

Adsorbentadsorbate
working pairs

Desorption
temperature (C)

Chilled water inlet

temperature (C)

Cycle time
(min)

Cooling water inlet

temperature (C)

SCP (W/kg)

Zeolite 13Xwater
Silica gelwater
Silica-gelwater
Silica gelwater
Silica gelwater
Silica gelwater
AQSOA-FAM-Z02water
LiCl/silica gelmethanol
SWS-8L (silica modied by calcium nitrate)water
LiCl/Silica gelmethanol
Zeolite 13X/CaCl2water

310.0
85.0
85.0
59.7
80.0
85.1
90.0
84.8
95.0
86.6
85.0

10.0
14.0
14.0
20.5
14.0
11.7
13.0
21.3
15.0
9.2
14.0

131.5
38.0
17.0
38.0
26.0
28.0
7.0
26.0
10.0
16.0
51.0

25.0
30.8
30.0
30.4
30.0
30.9
28.0
29.8
30.0
31.4
22.0

25.7
63.4
52.8
46.2
72.0
132.0
260.0
250.0
400.0
95.0
106.0

6. A comparison between this study and other similar studies

In this section, a comparison between this study and other similar studies are discussed, and the results are shown in Table 5.
Zhang [37] utilized zeolite 13Xwater as the adsorbentadsorbate
working pair, but the form and the size of zeolite 13X utilized in
their study are different compared to the current one, of which
their zeolite 13X is in pellet form with diameter of 23 mm. Most
importantly, the desorption temperature tested in their study was
very high (i.e. 310 C). This is one of the drawbacks of using zeolite
13X as the adsorbent since it is difcult to be powered by a low
grade waste heat or solar energy. As a result, it narrows the application values. However, after impregnating the calcium chloride
into the pores of zeolite 13X, the desorption temperature required
is reduced signicantly [10].
It should be emphasized that the adsorber structure, the overall
adsorption cooling systems design and operating conditions are
different compared to the other studies. For example, Vasta et al.
[42] developed a lightweight aluminum nned at-tube heat
exchanger. By connecting the six heat exchangers in parallel, it
formed an adsorbent bed which offered a low metal/adsorbent
mass ratio, and a large heat transfer exchanging surface between
the metal nned tubes and adsorbent grains. Similarly, Freni
et al. [44] developed a very compact and light weight adsorbent
bed since the heat exchanger was made of aluminum. Besides, a
good heat transfer property due to the high heat transfer area
was also achieved. Recently, Lu and Wang [45] utilized LiCl/silica
gelmethanol as the adsorbentadsorbate working pair. The adsorbent bed they made was nned tube heat exchanger, of which the
composite adsorbents (LiCl/silica gel) were pressed inside the aluminum ns in order to enhance the heat transfer performance.
Similar to this study, a metal mesh was also placed around the
adsorbent to avoid leakage, but the metal mesh used in Lus study
was further covered by a pore tube, and the pipes with adsorbent
were welded together. Besides, Gong et al. [43] proposed to use a
heat pipe evaporator in the adsorption cooling systems. By using

the loop heat pipe in evaporator, it showed the advantage of elimination of vacuum valves for the adsorption cooling systems so that
the reliability of the systems could be enhanced.
However, as previously mentioned, the focus of this study is on
the comparison between using silica gel as the adsorbent and zeolite 13X/CaCl2 as the adsorbent in a particular adsorption cooling
system prototype. This comparison can be made directly since
the results obtained are based on the same adsorption cooling system prototype as well as the same operating conditions. With
regard to this, it is found that using the composite adsorbent for
the adsorption cooling system can increase the SCP value, enhancing on average about 30% compared to that of the silica gel adsorbent at the same operating condition. Although the SCP value of
106 W/kg is not the best among all the studies as shown in Table 5,
a similar order of magnitude is achieved. Overall, the results demonstrated that the composite adsorbents can be a good candidate
for low temperature thermally driven adsorption cooling systems.

7. Conclusions
In this study, a double-bed composite adsorbent (zeolite 13X/
CaCl2)water adsorption cooling system with copper U-tubes and
circular plate n structured adsorbers has been developed. Under
the most optimized operating condition, a cooling power of
371 W can be achieved. It provided a SCP of about 106 W/kg. In
addition, a comparison is made between the two adsorbents. It is
found that the COP value of the system using zeolite 13X/CaCl2 is
lower than that using silica gel, but the SCP is improved by about
30% at the exactly same operating condition. A longer adsorption/desorption phase time is required if the adsorption cooling
system is equipped with the composite adsorbent. If a high cooling
water temperature, above 29 C, or low chilled water inlet temperature, below 17 C, is utilized, the adsorption cooling system
equipped with the composite adsorbent shows a better cooling
performance than that of the silica gel.

C.Y. Tso et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 85 (2015) 343355

Besides, heat recovery, mass recovery, and pre-heating and precooling cycles have also been studied. No matter which cycle is
performed, all make the improvement when compared to the basic
cycle, and the minimum improvement of the SCP and COP is about
43% and 63%, respectively. The effect of only performing the preheating and pre-cooling cycle is not that signicant when compared to mass recovery and/or heat recovery cycles. Among all
the recovery cycles, the heat and mass recovery cycle made a huge
improvement to the COP and SCP of the adsorption cooling system.
60 s is the best heat recovery phase time; while 12 s is the best for
the mass recovery phase time for this adsorption cooling system
prototype. However, more equipment is required if the heat recovery cycle is conducted. Thus, mass recovery together with the preheating and pre-cooling cycle is preferred, when the SCP and COP
can reach about 106 W/kg and 0.16, respectively, about 130% and
100% increase compared to that of the basic cycle.
Conict of interest
None declared.
Acknowledgement
Funding sources for this research are provided by the Hong
Kong Research Grant Council via General Research Fund account
611212 and 16201114, and also the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China via Grant No. 2013J4500064.
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