Performance analysis of a solar cooling plant based on a liquid desiccant evaporative cooler

Summer air conditioning represents a growing market in buildings worldwide, with a significant growth rate observed in European commercial and residential buildings. Available heat driven cooling technologies can be used in combination with solar thermal collectors to reduce the load caused by air conditioning on the electric utilities and to reduce the environmental impact. This work reports a performance analysis of an open cycle solar cooling plant. The plant, installed in Northern Italy, is based on a liquid desiccant evaporative cooler coupled with a solar field. Experimental tests run during summer show average primary energy ratio and primary energy saving index of about 1.6 and 30%, respectively. Though this performance is satisfactorily, the regeneration unit always operated near the lower bound of the nominal temperature range. Therefore, optimization of the solar system design could lead to higher performance.     

Solid desiccant solar air conditioning unit in Tunisia: Numerical study

In this paper, a method for the provision of the human thermal comfort through solar activated solid desiccant cooling technologies is discussed. These technologies were numerically studied under different Tunisian climatic conditions (relatively cold and humid: Bizerte; hot and dry: Remeda; moderate: Djerba). The studied solid desiccant cooling is based on the use of a fixed solid desiccant bed instead of a rotary desiccant wheel. The development of the mathematical equations modeling the functioning of the different components (solid fixed bed, heat exchanger, humidifier, solar collector) is based on heat and mass transfers' balances. Results showed good functioning and applicability of these studied systems for various outdoor conditions of the major Tunisian cities.     

Solar absorption system for air conditioning

This Paper presents a new continous operating solar desiccant absorption system in which CaCl₂-H₂O is used as the absorbent. The flat-plate solar collector is utilized as the desorber where water from the solution is evaporated to ambient air in passing over the collector above the solution film. The plant is equipped with a latent heat accumulation system which is extremely compact in size and very efficient. The coefficient of performance—solar collector efficiency product, indicating the grade of solar energy utilized, is estimated as being the highest of all presently known systems.     

Cooling machine with integrated cold storage

The use of thermal solar energy systems in combination with thermal driven sorption chillers for climatisation gains increasing influence. For solar assisted cooling a backup system is necessary for times when no solar energy is available. Absorption chillers driven by a combination of thermal collectors and conventional furnaces, which supply the driving heat in times of no insolation, suffer from an abrupt drop of the system efficiency (COP) during the operation change. This drop in COP can be avoided by installing a combined heat buffer and storage feature. Various possibilities of heat storage features are compared. An experimental setup of a high-efficient absorption chiller which facilitates the supply of a constant load of coldness at constantly high COP in spite of periodically available driving heat is presented.     

Use of compound desiccant to develop high performance desiccant cooling system

The paper is aimed to develop a high performance rotary solid desiccant cooling system using a novel compound desiccant wheel (DW). The unique feature of the desiccant wheel is that it can work well under a lower regeneration temperature and have a higher dehumidification capacity due to the contribution of the new compound desiccant materials. Experimental results indicate that the novel desiccant wheel under practical operation can remove more moisture from the process air by about 20–40% over the desiccant wheel employing regular silica gel. A mathematical model that is used to predict the system performance has been validated with the test results. By integrating the desiccant wheel with evaporative cooling, heat recovery and heating for regeneration sections, a solid desiccant cooling system can be formed. Simulation results show that because of the use of the new compound desiccant, the desiccant cooling system can work under much lower regeneration temperature and have a relative high COP, thus low grade thermal energy resources, such as solar energy, waste heat, etc., can be efficiently utilized to drive such a cooling cycle.     

Solar cooling with water–ammonia absorption chillers and concentrating solar collector – Operational experience

Concentrating solar collectors provide high efficiency at high driving temperatures favourable for thermally driven chillers. Therefore, they offer applications for hot climates and industrial process integration, especially in combination with NH₃–H₂O chillers that provide refrigeration temperatures below 0 °C. The presented solar cooling installation comprises a linear concentrating Fresnel collector that provides the driving heat for two NH₃–H₂O absorption chillers at temperatures up to 200 °C. Chilled water temperatures are produced in the range between −12 °C and 0 °C. Collector capacities reached up to 70 kW at peak times and the total cooling capacity of both chillers showed peak values up to 25 kW. For good operating conditions, the thermal system EER was 0.8 and an electrical system EER of 12 was easily achieved. The system showed a sound operating behaviour. The performance of different operation and control strategies was analysed, evaluated and enhanced within the two year operation phase.     

Energy and exergy evaluation of an integrated solar heat pipe wall system for space heating

In this paper, an integrated solar heat pipe wall space heating system, employing double glazed heat pipe evacuated tube solar collector and forced convective heat transfer condenser, is introduced. Thermal performance of the heat pipe solar collector is studied and a numerical model is developed to investigate the thermal efficiency of the system, the inlet and outlet air temperatures and heat pipe temperature. Furthermore, the system performance is evaluated based on exergy efficiency. In order to verify the precision of the developed model, the numerical results are compared with experimental data. Parametric sensitivity for design features and material associated with the heat pipe, collector cover and insulation is evaluated to provide a combination with higher thermal performance. Simulation results show that applying a solar collector with more than 30 heat pipes is not efficient. The rate of increasing in temperature of air becomes negligible after 30 heat pipes and the trend of the thermal efficiency is descending with increasing heat pipes. The results also indicate that at a cold winter day of January, the proposed system with a 20 heat pipe collector shows maximum energy and exergy efficiency of 56.8% and 7.2%, which can afford warm air up to 30°C. At the end, the capability of the proposed system to meet the heating demand of a building is investigated. It is concluded that the best method to reach a higher thermal covered area is to apply parallel collectors.     

The analysis of a solar‐assisted desiccant evaporative cooling system and its application

Abstract

The direct application of an evaporative cooling system is impractical in Taiwan due to local hot and humid weather conditions. In this study, a hybrid cooling system utilizing an evaporative cooler coupled with a chemical dehumidifier is investigated. The solid desiccant, or silica gel, which could be regenerated by solar energy, dehumidifies the incoming air while the evaporative cooler effectively cools it down to the indoor comfort condition. An optimal design approach including a sensitivity study was performed during the computer simulation process. A systematic result was obtained providing design information, such as the desiccant consumption rate and solar collector area needed for indoor comfort air‐conditioning.     

Indoor temperature variations resulting from solar desiccant cooling in a building without thermal backup

The performance of a once-through solar desiccant cooling system, for air-conditioning a commercial office space, was modelled using the TRNSYS computer simulation software package. The study particularly focused on the potential for designing and operating a desiccant cooling system, without any thermal backup provided to mitigate for intermittent solar availability in three Australian cities.Increasing (i) indirect evaporative cooler effectiveness, (ii) air flow to the office space, and (iii) solar collector area were all shown to reduce the frequency of high temperature events inside the building occupied space. In the warm temperate climate of Melbourne (and to a lesser extent Sydney), high ventilation rates enabled comfort conditions to be maintained at or near acceptable levels in the occupied space, without the use of a backup thermal source.The synergy between evaporative cooling and solar desiccant cooling, observed in the warm temperate climates, was not evident in the tropical Darwin climate, suggesting that the selected ventilation desiccant cooling cycle is not appropriate for tropical climates.     

太阳能驱动的转轮除湿蒸发冷却空调系统理论研究

为了响应国家节能政策的要求,降低建筑的能耗需求以及避免传统空调系统CFCs对臭氧层的破坏,本文试图提出一种太阳能驱动的转轮除温蒸发冷却空调系统,并以办公室为例,从理论上分析了该系统的性能,为该系统的下一步优化设计及实验提供理论参考。     

太阳能空气集热耦合地板蓄热系统热特性实验研究

提出了一种适用于被动式太阳能空气供暖的混凝土地板蓄热系统,并对该蓄热系统在寒冷地区农村住宅中的应用进行了热特性及其影响因素实验研究。讨论了该蓄热系统对室内热环境的作用,不同集热器朝向、热气流湿度及供风速度作用下地板蓄热系统的蓄放热特性。实验结果表明,太阳能空气集热耦合混凝土地板蓄热系统充分利用建筑本体结构蓄热,有效提高了太阳能供暖房间的室内温度及其稳定性。     

Solar air conditioning researches and demonstrations in China

This paper shows mainly the demonstration of solar air conditioning systems in China, which includes LiBr-H2O absorption cooling, silica gel-water adsorption chiller, desiccant cooling and hybrid integrated energy systems for buildings. The match of solar collector types and chiller types have been discussed and suggested     

Contributions of system components and operating conditions to the performance of desiccant cooling systems

This study systematically analyzes the effect of various kinds of design parameters on the performance of a desiccant cooling system under two different system configurations. The considered parameters include system components such as the sensible heat exchanger, regenerative evaporative cooler and desiccant wheel, as well as operating conditions of outdoor conditions, regenerative temperature and rate of outdoor influx. Numerical simulation has been conducted for these 11 design parameters with 3 levels. The orthogonal array L₂₇(3¹³) is adopted for the analysis of variance. In the range of the parameters considered, the regenerative temperature is found to be the most dominant parameter of contribution ratio of 31.9% and 23.9% for each system configuration. In the case of confined interest of the applications such as a district cooling system or a solar system using medium-temperature collectors, the cooling performance of the regenerative evaporative cooler is the most crucial for the system performance.     

Experimental investigation on the performance of a solar powered lithium bromide–water absorption cooling system

The performance of solar cooling absorption system needs further research, due to its poor coefficient of performance (COP). Therefore, this study investigated the performance of a 23 kW solar powered single-effect lithium bromide–water (LiBr–H₂O) absorption cooling system. Furthermore, the space heating mode was also investigated and the improvement methods were analyzed and discussed. The cooling system was driven by a parabolic trough collector of 56 m² aperture area and used for cooling a 102 m² meeting room. Research results revealed that the chiller's maximum instantaneous refrigeration coefficient (chiller efficiency) could be up to 0.6. Most of the time, in sunny and clear sky days the daily solar heat fraction ranged from 0.33 to 0.41 and the collectors field efficiency ranged from 0.35 to 0.45. At the same time, chiller efficiency was varied from 0.25 to 0.7 and the daily cooling COP was varied from 0.11 to 0.27, respectively.     

Analysis of an air cycle refrigerator driving air conditioning system integrated desiccant system

This study presents theoretical investigation on the performance of air cycle refrigerator driving air conditioning system integrated desiccant system. Total system performance is evaluated and the system feasibility is examined. The system has such characteristics that (1) safe material of air and water are used as a refrigerant, (2) waste heat from air cycle refrigerator performs the regeneration of desiccant material for energy saving. It has been clarifying that (1) controlling the evaporative cooling process in air washer, the system can operate for a wide range of cooling loads, (2) the total coefficient of performance on air conditioning system is better than the conventional vapor compression system with reheating coil, and (3) the system performance highly depends on the ratio of the amount of outdoor intake air to the supply air.     

Experimental study on a new internally cooled/heated dehumidifier/regenerator of liquid desiccant systems

For providing good performance of dehumidifier and regenerator with certain dimensions, a new type of internally cooled/heated dehumidifier/regenerator based on the plate–fin heat exchanger (PFHE) was designed. To investigate the behavior of the new equipment, an experimental setup was established in an environment chamber with regulable temperature and humidity air. By the internally cooled dehumidification testing, effects of the cooling water temperature, the air flow rate and the desiccant temperature on the dehumidification performance and the cooling efficiency were presented. The behavior of internally cooled dehumidification process was compared with that of the adiabatic dehumidification process. The results suggested that the cooling efficiency decreased with the increasing of the cooling water temperature and desiccant with low temperature could bring more mass transfer coefficients. There is an optimal air flow rate to achieve the maximum absolute humidity decrease of the air. By the internally heated regeneration testing, effects of the air flow rate and the desiccant inlet temperature on the regeneration performance and air outlet parameters were discussed and also compared with those of the adiabatic regeneration process. It was concluded that the regeneration efficiency of internally heated regeneration was more than that of the adiabatic regeneration, and the internally heated regenerator could offer better thermal performance.     

Performance analysis of desiccant dehumidification systems driven by low-grade heat source

If a desiccant dehumidification system can be driven by a heat source whose temperature is below 50 °C, exhaust heat from devices such as fuel cells or air conditioners can be used as its heat source, thereby saving energy. Therefore, in this study, we used a previously validated simulation model to determine the minimum heat source temperature for driving a desiccant dehumidification system. We considered four desiccant dehumidification systems that can be driven by waste heat—conventional desiccant-type systems (wheel type and batch type with only desiccant), a system with a precooler, double-stage-type systems (a type with two desiccant wheels and a four-partition desiccant wheel type), and a batch-type system with an internal heat exchanger. We found that among these systems, the last system can be driven by the lowest heated air temperature—approximately 33 °C—which is considerably lower than that of the conventional system.     

Development programmes in solar desiccant cooling for residential buildings

An overview is given of ongoing work in desiccant cooling under the US solar heating and cooling research programme. Open cycle adsorption systems are examined. The basic operating principles of each dehumidifier concept are explained and compared. Performance predictions for a solar desiccant solar system employing an axial-flow desiccant wheel dehumidifier are presented which indicate that it should be beneficial to use solar desiccant coolers in residential applications. Test results are expected within one year.     

A modified model of solar collector/regenerator considering effect of the glazing temperature

Solar liquid collector/regenerator (C/R), combining the functions of solar collector and regenerator of absorbent solution together, can be effectively utilized in solar energy-driven liquid desiccant cooling systems. Based on thermal balance of the glazing of solar C/R, a group of modified heat and mass transfer models, validated by experimental results to reflect solution regeneration process more truly, were put forward in this paper. Numerical simulation showed only preheating air stream, keeping an equal humidity ratio, did raise the performance of solar C/R, but preheating solution increased the regeneration efficiencies to reach twice that of preheating air stream. There occurred optimum mass flow rates for both air stream and solution film reaching 36–48 kg m⁻¹ h⁻¹ and 4∼6 kg m⁻¹ h⁻¹ respectively for solar C/Rs of 3∼6 m long. As for effect of the length of solar C/Rs, the regeneration efficiency η_r reached a maximum value at about 4 m and shorter or longer solar C/Rs failed to increase solution regeneration efficiencies.     

太阳能半导体冰箱的性能分析

介绍了太阳能电池驱动的半导体制冷冰箱系统的基本结构,建立了太阳能电池驱动的半导体冰箱的理论模型,并对系统性能进行了数值模拟,分析了太阳辐射强度和环境风速的变化对太阳能半导体制冷系统性能的影响。研究表明针对设计的太阳能半导体制冷系统,在某一太阳辐射强度下,系统的制冷量输出最大,并且在辐射强度200～1000W/m^2时,制冷系数随着太阳辐射强度的减小而减小。在给定的工况下,环境风速增加使得系统工作电流朝靠近最佳工作电流数值方向增加。