Experimental investigation of the heat and mass transfer between air and liquid desiccant in a cross-flow regenerator

The regenerator is one of the essential components in a liquid desiccant air-conditioning system, whose efficiency directly influences the system performance. A performance test-bed for a cross-flow regenerator was established in the present analysis. Celdek structured packings were used in the regenerator and LiBr aqueous solution was used as the liquid desiccant. Moisture removal rate and regenerator effectiveness are adopted to describe the mass transfer performance of the regenerator. Effects of air and desiccant inlet parameters on the regenerator performance are experimentally investigated, and performance comparisons between present cross-flow regenerator and other counter-flow configurations available in the literature are also carried out. The comparison results show that the impacts of air and desiccant inlet parameters show similar tendency with those of counter-flow regenerators. A dimensionless mass transfer correlation is proposed, which gives results in good agreement with the experimental findings.

[1]  Terry G. Lenz,et al.  Performance studies for an experimental solar open-cycle liquid desiccant air dehumidification system , 1990 .

[2]  James R. Fair,et al.  Distillation Columns Containing Structured Packings: A Comprehensive Model for Their Performance. 2. Mass-Transfer Model , 1996 .

[3]  Omar M. Al-Rabghi,et al.  Proposed energy-efficient air-conditioning system using liquid desiccant , 1996 .

[4]  W. Kessling,et al.  Energy storage in open cycle liquid desiccant cooling systems , 1998 .

[5]  Borong Lin,et al.  Combined cogeneration and liquid-desiccant system applied in a demonstration building , 2004 .

[6]  S. C. Kaushik,et al.  Experimental studies on the dehumidifier and regenerator of a liquid desiccant cooling system , 2000 .

[7]  D. Goswami,et al.  Study of an aqueous lithium chloride desiccant system: air dehumidification and desiccant regeneration , 2002 .

[8]  Kambiz Vafai,et al.  Comparative study between parallel and counter flow configurations between air and falling film desiccant in the presence of nanoparticle suspensions , 2003 .

[9]  Sabah A. Abdul-Wahab,et al.  Predictions of moisture removal rate and dehumidification effectiveness for structured liquid desiccant air dehumidifier , 2004 .

[10]  C. F. Kettleborough,et al.  A Review of Desiccant Cooling Systems , 1993 .

[11]  Arshad Y. Khan,et al.  Cooling and dehumidification performance analysis of internally-cooled liquid desiccant absorbers , 1998 .

[12]  Arshad Y. Khan,et al.  Modelling and parametric analysis of heat and mass transfer performance of refrigerant cooled liquid desiccant absorbers , 1998 .

[13]  Ahmed M. Hamed,et al.  The effect of inlet parameters on the performance of packed tower-regenerator , 2002 .

[14]  Kim Choon Ng,et al.  Improved thermodynamic property fields of LiBr-H2O solution , 2000 .

[15]  D. Y. Goswami,et al.  Heat and mass transfer in packed bed liquid desiccant regenerators : An experimental investigation , 1999 .

[16]  James E. Braun,et al.  An effectiveness model of liquid-desiccant system heat/mass exchangers , 1989 .

[17]  Y. Kaita,et al.  Thermodynamic properties of lithium bromide-water solutions at high temperatures. , 2001 .

[18]  Palanichamy Gandhidasan,et al.  Calculation of Heat and Mass Transfer Coefficients in a Packed Tower Operating With a Desiccant-Air Contact System , 1986 .

[19]  K. Y. Qu,et al.  Field study on independent dehumidification air-conditioning system-I: Performance of liquid desiccant dehumidification system , 2005 .

[20]  G. Grossman,et al.  A packed bed dehumidifier/regenerator for solar air conditioning with liquid desiccants , 1980 .

[21]  H. F. Zhang,et al.  Numerical simulation and theoretical analysis of heat and mass transfer in a cross flow liquid desiccant air dehumidifier packed with honeycomb paper , 2004 .