Front. Energy Power Eng. China 2010, 4(2): 161165 DOI 10.

1007/s11708-009-0070-5

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Vijay MITTAL, B. Kant KHAN

Experimental investigation on desiccant air-conditioning system in India

Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2009

Abstract An experimental investigation in India was presented to evaluate the performance and energy saving capacity of a desiccant air-conditioning system composed of a silica gel bed, a split type air-conditioner (1.0 ton refrigeration) installed in a room with a volume of 86.4 m3, air ducts and a blower. The experiment was made in such a way that the percentages of return air, outdoor air and indoor air mixed with the air leaving the desiccant and desiccant bed thickness could be adjusted. Tests were conducted on several days with relatively similar ambient conditions. Under the test conditions in this experiment, a 7 cm bed thickness is recommended with a maximum adsorption rate of 403 g/h. The optimum percentages of air ratios were as follows: 10% of outdoor air, 10% of return air (mixed together at the desiccant bed inlet) and 80% of indoor air mixed with the dry air leaving the desiccant. The corresponding electricity saving was about 19%. As expected, simple economic analysis indicates that the desiccant air-conditioning is not viable for smaller cooling capacities. Keywords air ratios, ambient conditions, desiccant airconditioning, silica gel

Introduction

The desiccant air conditioning cycle is an open heat driven cycle, which can be used both to cool and dehumidify air. Being a heat driven cycle, desiccant air conditioning affords an opportunity to utilize the heat obtained from the sun. It can therefore be coupled to solar collectors to produce an air conditioning system. Beggs and Warwicker [1] have shown that desiccant air conditioning is best
Received March 5, 2009; accepted May 22, 2009 Vijay MITTAL ( ), B. Kant KHAN The Mechanical Engineering Department, BRCM College of Engineering and Technology, Bahal-127028, Bhiwani, India E-mail: vmittal1231@rediffmail.com

applied to installations where the bulk of the sensible air conditioning is performed by a water-based system, such as a chilled ceiling. In such applications, desiccant air conditioning should be used to treat the incoming ventilation air. Beggs and Halliday [2] have demonstrated the potential opportunity for harnessing solar energy to drive desiccant systems in northern Europe and the UK. These studies yielded good results, and demonstrated that for much of the air conditioning season most of the regeneration heat required could be provided by solar energy. Henning et al. [3] have explored that the use of the heat produced by solar thermal collectors is an interesting option for thermal driven desiccant air-conditioning. Meckler [4] has also found that the use of desiccant preconditioning of supply air can improve the humidity control capabilities of overall refrigeration and air conditioning systems and reduce energy costs. Furthermore, incorporation of desiccant preconditioning into such systems allows a higher percentage of fresh air in the supply stream. Collier et al. [5], Albers et al. [6], Grifths [7], and Peng and Howell [8] have found that with recent advances in desiccant dehumidication, liquid sorbent equipment are becoming more attractive applications for air-conditioning. Jurinak et al. [9] have compared the performance between desiccants and vapour compression systems for residential applications and the cost and environmental impact of using solar energy for regeneration. Kinsara et al. [10] have proposed and evaluated a desiccant-based air-conditioning system. Ani et al. [11] have tested various packing heights of the absorber component to determine the optimal performance of the combined unit consisting of vapour compression unit, a liquid desiccant system, and a at solar hot water collector. Stevens et al. [12] have developed a computationally efcient model for packed-bed, liquid-desiccant heat and mass exchangers. Factor and Grossman [13] have studied a packed column air-liquid contactor in application to air dehumidication and regeneration in solar air conditioning with liquid desiccants. Hirunlabh et al. [14] have conducted an experimental analysis to investigate the

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performance and energy saving of the well-known desiccant air-conditioning system in Thailand. Kabeel [15] has proposed and studied the solar powered air conditioning system using liquid desiccants in a honeycomb desiccant rotary wheel that contain porous material in a solar air heater used for regeneration purpose. Smith et al. [16] have developed a mathematical model of a solarassisted desiccant air conditioner and simulated its performance in a residential building. Worek and Moon [17] have studied the performance of a desiccant, integrated, hybrid, vapor-compression cooling system numerically. Areemit and Sakamoto [18] have reported results of a passive room-dehumidifying system using an existing attic space as a chamber and wood as a desiccant material. Nia et al. [19] have presented a model of a desiccant wheel for dehumidifying the ventilation air of an air-conditioning system. In this work the experiments are conducted in order to investigate the assessment of the performance of desiccant air-conditioning under Indian conditions. A simple economical analysis is also conducted to predict the payback and internal rate of return of the system.

average bed temperature. The RH and temperature at the inlet and outlet of the desiccant bed were also measured with the help of a sling psycrometer. An electrical meter was used to record the electrical consumption of the AC in kilowatt-hour. The experiments were performed from 900 AM to 400 PM and data were recorded at 15 min intervals. In order to ensure that the cooling load remains constant, results of only those days were taken which have relatively similar ambient conditions. Moreover, the room location was chosen in such a way that it minimized the effect of ambient conditions. The research was conducted at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, BRCM College of Engineering & Technology, Bahal. Bahal is a small town in the district of Bhiwani on the western fringe of Haryana bordering Rajasthan. However, in the study of solar energy, the name of place does not convey anything, so it is mandatory to specify its location with the help of latitude and longitude. The latitude and longitude of Bahal are 29N & 7628 E, respectively. The room is located at the rst oor of the college building.

3 2 System description and experimental procedure

Experiments were conducted using a split type AC (1.0 ton refrigeration) to cool a room of 86.4 m3. Commercial silica gel (47 mm diameter) was used in a desiccant bed. The desiccant bed was made of stainless steel of 4 mm thick with an area of 0.36 m2 (0.6 m0.6 m). The bed thicknesses of 5 and 7 cm were considered, which can contain 7 and 13 kg of silica gel. A 1 hp blower was used to blow air through the desiccant bed. The return air (RA) and fresh air (FA) were mixed before entering the desiccant bed. This mixture of return air and fresh air (RA and FA) leaving the desiccant bed was called dry air (DA). DA and indoor air (IA) were mixed before entering the evaporator of the air-conditioner. Initially, indoor air and return air (IA and RA) were at the same conditions. Different ratios of air composition considered are given in Table 1. The airow rate through the evaporator was maintained at 1500 m3/h. The temperature of the air at the inlet and outlet of the bed and the desiccant bed were measured at six points in order to calculate an
Table 1
case

Results and discussion

Effect of silica gel bed thickness on bed temperature

3.1

The effect of thickness of silica gel bed was studied in order to nd out the optimized value of silica gel bed thickness. Initially, only ambient air was circulated through the bed and experiments were conducted. Figures 1 and 2 depict the variation of temperatures of air and silica gel bed with a bed thickness of 5 and 7 cm, respectively, on an hourly basis. It can be seen that the temperature of the bed and the temperature of the air leaving the bed were high at the beginning. This is due to the fact that during the adsorption process of moisture by silica gel, a certain amount of heat is released which depends on the amount of adsorbed moisture. The more the moisture adsorbed, the higher the heat released. This phenomenon takes place at the beginning of the adsorption process as silica gel is dry and, therefore, possesses higher adsorption ability. Therefore, it can be concluded that the air which is available at the beginning of adsorption should not be used in air conditioning. After that the silica gel moisture content increases, which decreases the rate of moisture removal and exit air temperature as well.

Different ratios of air composition entering desiccant bed (DB) and entering evaporator
entering DB percentage of FA /(m3$h1) percentage of RA /(m3$h1) 50 150 250 entering evaporator percentage of DA /(m3$h1) 100 300 500 500 percentage of IA /(m3$h1) 900 700 500 500

A B C D

50 150 250 100

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Fig. 1 Hourly variation of bed temperature and air temperature for the bed thickness of 5 cm, air ow rate 750 m3/h

Fig. 3 Hourly variation of absorption rate for the bed thickness of 5 and 7 cm

Fig. 4 Variation of pressure drop between inlet and outlet of desiccant bed for the bed thickness of 5 and 7 cm

Fig. 2 Hourly variation of bed temperature and air temperature for the bed thickness of 7 cm, air ow rate 750 m3/h

3.2

Effect of silica gel bed thickness on adsorption rate

Figure 3 depicts the effect of silica gel thickness on adsorption rate. It can be seen from Fig. 3 that by increasing the bed thickness, the average adsorption rate increases from 330 to 573 kg/h. Figure 4 depicts the variation of the pressure drop between the inlet and outlet with mass the ow rate of the bed. It is clear that the increase of pressure drop is very small compared with the increase of the adsorption rate. The discussion in this section can be concluded with the recommendation of 7 cm bed, which will now be used in the subsequent section.
3.3 Performance analysis of desiccant system

The performance analysis of the system is limited to the most signicant parameters, viz., temperature, moisture

ratio and enthalpy of air entering the evaporator. Experiments were conducted for various combinations of FA & RA entering the desiccant bed and DA & IA entering the evaporator. For simplicity of presentation, only the results of the most signicant cases as given in Table 1, viz., A, B, C, D, are presented and discussed. Figures 5 and 6 depict the hourly variation of mixed air temperature and moisture ratio before entering the evaporator respectively, while Fig. 7 depicts the hourly variation of enthalpy before entering the evaporator. Low temperature and high moisture ratio are observed with case A, which is due to the high amount of indoor air recirculated (900 m3/h). The opposite was observed with case B, which is obvious due to the increase in the amount of fresh air admitted in the cycle. For case C, air temperature and moisture ratio are high, as great amount of ambient air is introduced to the system and less indoor air is recirculated to the mixing box before the evaporator. With case D, the moisture ratio and temperature vary between case A and case C in a different way than the other cases. In fact, as no return air was used, only ambient air is circulated through the silica gel bed. Consequently, the

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irregularity of the moisture prole. The corresponding average air enthalpy is quite high (60 kJ/kg) as shown in Fig. 7, whereas those of cases A and B are signicantly smaller.
3.4 Economic analysis

Figure 8 depicts daily electrical consumption of airconditioning system for different test conditions. The maximum energy savings, obtained with case B, is about 19%. Therefore, the savings on the electrical consumption of the air-conditioning system using silica gel desiccant is well recognized under Bahal conditions.

Fig. 5 Hourly variation of mixed air temperature entering the evaporator

Fig. 8 Daily electrical consumption of air-conditioning system for different test conditions

Fig. 6 Hourly variation of mixed air moisture ratio entering the evaporator

After nding out the savings in terms of electricity an economic analysis was also done to determine the merits and shortcomings of the proposed system. The main objectives are to check the payback period and internal rate of return (IRR) of the system. Based on cost estimates of the desiccant system and using the electricity savings of 19%, calculations were executed and the results of economic analysis proved that the desiccant air system was not a viable option for the small air-conditioning system.

Conclusion

Fig. 7 Hourly variation of mixed air enthalpy entering the evaporator

adsorption process of air moisture is affected by the variation of ambient air conditions, which explains the

An experimental investigation using a split type airconditioning of 1.0 ton refrigeration capacity conrms that desiccant air-conditioning following the concept proposed in this paper is a feasible option to be used in India. Various operating conditions are considered by varying the ratios of indoor air, return air and fresh air. The return air and fresh air are mixed before entering the silica gel bed. The DA leaving the bed is mixed with the recirculated indoor air at the evaporator inlet. Compared with common AC use where indoor air is recycled totally, the electricity savings

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is about 19%. The optimum operating air ratios are 70% of indoor air mixed to 30% DA of which half is outdoor air. A simple economic analysis shows that for a small cooling capacity (split type unit), this system is not a suitable option as the extra cost is quite signicant compared with the savings.

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