Review and prospects of development of lithium bromide absorption refrigeration technology in China

China has become a great country for producing absorption chillers. fit the last decade the magnitude of production and number of manufacturers was increased rapidly. Especially in 1997, 3575 absorption chillers and chiller/heaters were shipped, and it constituted 215 in the values of produced types of chillers for central air conditioning systems. In comparison with the past, the production facility had been improved considerably. The amount of direct-fired chiller/heaters was increasing, and hot water operated two stage absorption chillers, small size direct fired chiller/heaters, packaged chiller/heater/cooling tower units and small size combined chiller/heaters emerged. In the market distributed chillers with 1,2 or 3 shells and 1,2 or 3 canned motor pumps, with COP equal to that of world famous brands, with PID control and touch screen operation, which improves the efficiency of operation. In the future China will do her best to develop high efficient and compact chillers, energy-saving industrial units, and gas-fired absorption chiller/heaters, to carry out fundamental research and apply the automatic and remote control to improve the performance of chillers.