Case Study: Fraunhofer ISE achieves more efficient adsorption-based heating and cooling with Comsol Multiphysics

Fraunhofer ISE - Customer Case Study

Fraunhofer ISE (Freiburg, Germany), a leading solar energy research institute, faced the challenge of making adsorption‑based chillers, heat pumps and thermal storage units far more efficient, compact and cost‑effective to reduce building energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Because the systems exhibit strongly nonlinear, coupled heat-and-mass transfer and discontinuous cyclic behavior, the team relied on Comsol’s COMSOL Multiphysics software to capture dynamic adsorption/desorption processes that analytic methods cannot handle.

Using Comsol, Fraunhofer ISE validated small‑scale experiments (including 50×50 mm zeolite sorbent tests), performed parameter estimation to obtain otherwise unmeasurable transport coefficients, and ran parametric sweeps to optimize novel wire‑structured heat exchangers. The work produced excellent agreement between simulated and measured vapor pressures, higher heat‑transfer coefficients with significantly reduced material use, improved sorbent uptake dynamics, and reduced need for full‑scale prototypes—speeding development, cutting costs, and helping demonstrate adsorption systems with up to three times the storage capacity of traditional hot‑water systems.

Fraunhofer ISE

Eric Laurenz

Researcher