AbstractThe development of a small capacity absorption chiller and the numerical and experimental results are presented in this paper. The prototype is a thermally driven ammonia-water absorption chiller of 5kW cooling capacity for solar cooling applications. The chiller was developed in an industrial perspective with a goal of overall compactness and using commercially available components. In order to characterize various component technologies and different optimization components, the prototype is monitored with temperature, pressure and mass flow rate accurate sensors. The resulting chiller, characterized by a reduced load in ammonia-water solution and the use of brazed plate heat exchanger, has shown good performance during the preliminary tests. A comparison with the expected numerical results is given.