Abstract:The cold-chain transportation is an important means to ensure the drug and food safety. An cold-chain insulated container incorporating with Phase Change Material (PCM) has been developed for a temperature-controlled transportation in the range of 2~8 • C. The container configuration and different preconditioning methods have been determined to realize a 72-h transportation under extremely high, extremely low, and alternating temperature conditions. The experimental results showed that the temperature-controlled time was extended from 1 h to more than 80 h and the internal temperature maintained at 4~5 • C by using a PCM with a melting/freezing point of 5 • C, while the container presented a subcooling effect in a range of −1~2 • C when using water as PCM. The experimental values of the temperature-controlled time agreed well with the theoretical values.

A solar cooling and heating system incorporated with two air-source heat pumps was installed in Ningbo City, China and has been operating since 2018. It is composed of 40 evacuated tube modules with a total aperture area of 120 m 2 , a single-stage and LiBr-water-based absorption chiller with a cooling capacity of 35 kW, a cooling tower, a hot water storage tank, a buffer tank, and two air-source heat pumps, each with a rated cooling capacity of 23.8 kW and heating capacity of 33 kW as the auxiliary system. This paper presents the operational results and performance evaluation of the system during the summer cooling and winter heatingperiod, as well as on a typical summer day in 2018. It was found that the collector field yield and cooling energy yield increased by more than 40% when the solar cooling and heating system is incorporated with heat pumps. The annual average collector efficiency was 44% for cooling and 42% for heating, and the average coefficient of performance (COP) of the absorption chiller ranged between 0.68 and 0.76. The annual average solar fraction reached 56.6% for cooling and 62.5% for heating respectively. The yearly electricity savings accounted for 41.1% of the total electricity consumption for building cooling and heating.Energies 2019, 12, 996 2 of 17 single-effect LiBr-water absorption chiller in Madrid. The maximum instantaneous coefficient of performance (COP) (COP is the ratio of cooling energy yield and heat supplied by the generator), daily average COP and average COP during the period of 20 days of monitoring (25/07/2003 to 19/08/2003) were 0.60, 0.42, and 0.34, respectively. Pongtornkulpanich et al.[5] tested a 10-ton single effect LiBr-water absorption chiller powered by an evacuated tube solar collector in Thailand where the solar collector delivered 81% of the thermal energy for the chiller. Rosiek and Batlles [6] analyzed the behavior of the solar-assisted air-conditioning system installed in the CIESOL building to maximize the use of solar thermal energy supplying the cooling and heating system. The average values of coefficient of performance and the cooling capacity in summer months were 0.6 and 40 kW, respectively. Bermejo et al.[7] built and tested a solar/gas-driven double effect LiBr-water absorption system in Spain. The system could be driven by a direct-fired natural gas burner or by pressurized hot water delivered from a linear concentrating Fresnel collector. The average and maximum daily efficiencies of the solar collector were 0.35 and 0.4, respectively. The daily average COP of the chiller was 1.1-1.25. Lizarte et al. [8] experimentally studied a vacuum flat-plate collector-driven 4.5 kW air-cooled single-effect LiBr-water absorption chiller in Madrid. It was found that the mean COP and solar coefficient of performance (SCOP) (the ratio of cooling energy yield and the total solar energy available) were 0.53 and 0.06, respectively. Balghouthi et al. [9] presented a solar absorption cooling installation in Tunisia where it was found that the coefficient of perfor...

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