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Study of a novel solar-driven internally cooled liquid desiccant system for hot and humid climates

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Abstract

The current paper experimentally studied the performance of solar-driven internally cooled liquid desiccant system for hot and humid climates using CaCl2 as a liquid desiccant. The system is designed to investigate the input conditions of the room by adjusting various air and solution variables. This internally cooled liquid desiccant system consists of the dehumidifier and regenerator in a single module and the regeneration of the solution is done by solar energy. The present study analyzes the effect of solution concentration, air mass flow rate and solution volume flow rate using different performance indices such as humidity reduction, moisture effectiveness, enthalpy effectiveness, and COP. The results demonstrate that the maximum moisture reduction of 4.2 g/kg d.a. is found at an airflow rate of 0.03195 kg/s, a solution volume flow rate of 12.5 LPM, and a solution concentration of 37%, while the maximum COP of 0.274 is obtained at an airflow rate of 0.0715 kg/s, a solution volume flow rate of 12.5 LPM, and a solution concentration of 37%. The maximum moisture and enthalpy effectiveness are obtained as 24.1% and 26.2%, respectively. The paper also presents the correlations for moisture and enthalpy effectiveness based on findings from experiments.

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Abbreviations

A c :

Collector area, [m2]

COP :

Coefficient of performance

G :

Gravitational acceleration [m/s2]

H :

Specific enthalpy [kJ/kg]

I :

Incidence radiation [W/m2]

M :

Mass flow rate [kg/s]

Q u :

Useful gain energy [W]

T :

Temperature [°C]

U o :

Overall heat loss coefficient [W/m2 K]

\(\Delta\) W:

Moisture reduction [kg/kg d.a.]

\(\beta\) :

Tilt angle

Ρ:

Density (kg/m3)

\(\zeta\) :

Concentration [%]

\(\omega\) :

Specific humidity [kg/kg d.a.]

\({\varepsilon }_{m}\) :

Moisture effectiveness

\({\varepsilon }_{h}\) :

Enthalpy effectiveness

Φ:

Relative humidity [%]

\({\eta }_{c}\) :

Collector efficiency

A :

Air

Ea :

Evaporative air

Et :

Ethanol

Ew :

Evaporative cooling water

equ. :

Equilibrium

Hw :

Hot water

I :

Inlet

O :

Outlet

P :

Plate

R :

Regenerator

S :

Solution

W :

Water

AC :

Air conditioning

DBT :

Dry bulb temperature

d.a. :

Dry air

EC :

Evaporative cooling/cooler

HE :

Heat exchanger

HMT :

Heat and mass transfer

HVAC :

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning

ICD :

Internally cooled dehumidifier

LD :

Liquid desiccant

LDCS :

Liquid desiccant cooling system

LPM :

Litre per minute

TEG :

Triethylene glycol

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Funding

The authors would like to thank the Department of Science and Technology, India for providing the financial support through the Project No. DST/TDT/LCCT-04/2017.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, IIT Roorkee, Uttarakhand, 247667, India

    Kalpana & Sudhakar Subudhi

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  1. Kalpana
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Contributions

Kalpana: Conceptualization, Data curation, Investigation, Writing originaldraft preparation, Revision preparation. Sudhakar Subudhi: Resources, Reviewing and Editing, Supervision.

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Correspondence to Sudhakar Subudhi.

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Kalpana, Subudhi, S. Study of a novel solar-driven internally cooled liquid desiccant system for hot and humid climates. Heat Mass Transfer (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-024-03462-3

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