Indian Journal of Science and Technology

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Objectives: The objective of the current work is to demonstrate Liquid desiccant based air conditioning (LDAC) systems to reduce energy consumption and cater to latent cooling load more effectively. Methods/Statistical Analysis: This work describes three different projects undertaken to demonstrate efficacy of LDAC systems. One of the project demonstrated regeneration of liquid desiccant in a simple but economical solar thermal collector along with integrated liquid desiccant (LD) heat exchanger. Two other projects demonstrated regeneration using waste heat source and dehumidification of air in an internally cooled LD-air contacting device. Experiments were carried out in city of Vadodara in summer months of year 2017 and encouraging results are found. Findings: The passive solar regeneration project showed that a latent cooling rate of 96 W can be provided using an LDAC system per m2 area of solar thermal collector. Another useful utility in form of distilled water could be produced at a rate of 1.7 liters in a day per m2 area in this collector. The internally heated device used for demonstrating use of waste heat for LD regeneration could provide moisture removal rate of around 3.0 kg/h from air using aqueous solution of calcium chloride as LD with an average concentration of 37.7%.In the internally cooled air-LD contacting device, 2.0 kW of latent cooling along with 0.3 kW sensible cooling could be provided for air entering at around 34.7°C temperature and 47.5% relative humidity with an average chilled water temperature of 9.5°C and LD concentration of 40.0%. These experiments have thus demonstrated and established efficacy of LDAC system to provide effective dehumidification with use of energy sources with nominal recurring costs and reduced pollutant emission. Application/ Improvements: Reducing heat losses in solar collector, air bypasses in the contacting device and higher residence time of LD in contacting device can help improve these results further.

Keywords

Air Conditioning, Dehumidification, Energy Conservation, Liquid Desiccant, Solar Energy, Waste Heat.
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