An experimental study on multi‐purpose desiccant integrated vapor‐compression air‐conditioning system

In this paper, a multi‐purpose hybrid desiccant integrated vapor‐compression air‐conditioning system of a small capacity is experimentally investigated. The system, referred as hybrid desiccant‐assisted air conditioner (HDAC), is designed to meet the cooling load of spaces having large latent heat portions and at the same time to extract water from atmospheric air. The system is mainly consisted of a liquid‐desiccant dehumidification unit integrated with a vapor‐compression system (VCS). The dehumidification unit uses lithium chloride (LiCl) solution as the working material. The effect of different parameters, such as desiccant solution flow rate, process airflow rate, evaporator and condenser temperatures, strong solution concentration and regeneration temperature on the performance of the system, is studied. This system has a water recovery rate of 6.7 l/h TR (1.91 l/h kW) of pure water at typical north Egyptian climate (20–30°C dry bulb and 35–45% relative humidity). The HDAC system has a COP as high as 3.8 (an improvement of about 68% over the conventional VCS). The system offers a total cooling capacity of about 1.75 TR (6.15 kW) using a 0.75 TR (2.6 kW) VCS unit. Finally, the proposed system is found to have a payback time of about 10 months without any considerable extra capital cost compared with the known split air‐conditioning system. The results emphasize the potential benefits of the HDAC system. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.