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Article history: A silica gel coated heat exchanger based air conditioning system driven by the evacuated
Received 13 February 2016 tube solar water heater has been experimentally investigated. The system has been oper-
Received in revised form 20 April ated for two different modes namely cooling with dehumidification mode and heating with
2016 humidification mode in summer and winter season respectively. The system performance
Accepted 13 May 2016 is analyzed in terms of regeneration rate, dehumidification rate and thermal coefficient of
Available online 18 May 2016 performance (COPth). Experimental results demonstrated that, for cooling and dehumidifi-
cation mode, the process air is cooled by an average temperature of 8.5 C. A better
Keywords: dehumidification rate can be achieved by using pre-cooling before dehumidification process.
Evacuated tube solar water heater Post-cooling after dehumidification process is found to be advantageous for cooling capac-
Silica gel coated heat exchanger ity and COPth. For heating with humidification mode, the process air is heated by an average
Cooling tower temperature of 13.3 C with an average increment in humidity ratio of 1.9 g/kg. It is found
Direct evaporative cooling unit: heat that the average COPth of the system is 0.45 and 0.87 for cooling and heating mode respectively.
exchanger 2016 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
* Corresponding author. Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Haryana 136119, India.
Tel.: +91-9050254684.
E-mail address: amitror60@gmail.com (A. Kumar).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrefrig.2016.05.008
0140-7007/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd and IIR. All rights reserved.
52 international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163
The main objectives of this experimental work are to in- capacity of 25 L and a cellulose pad having a rectangular cross
vestigate the practical application at domestic level of a solar sectional area of 305 305 mm2 with a width of 100 mm. A water
driven solid desiccant air conditioning system for summer and pump is used to spray water to the top of the cellulose pad
winter season of northern India and also to evaluate the cooling/ from the water container. The effectiveness of DEC depends
heating capacity of the system. The experimental setup has on dry air produced by SCHE.
been fabricated and installed at NIT Kurukshetra, India [2958
(latitude) north and 7653 (longitude) east]. 2.5. Heat exchanger
2.1. Evacuated tube solar water heater 3. Working principle of experimental setup
It has 15 evacuated tubes and a header which is at an angle The system has been used to produce cooling and heating
of 30 relative to horizontal surface with south facing. The during summer and winter season respectively. A schematic
evacuated tube has 2 coaxial tubes, namely glass and ab- illustration of state changes during the cooling with dehu-
sorber tube. The length, outer diameters of the glass and midification mode and heating with humidification mode is
absorber tube is 1500 mm, 47 mm and 37 mm respectively. The represented on psychrometric charts in Fig. 4. The experi-
header has a cross section of 100 140 mm2 with a length of ments for cooling with dehumidification mode were conducted
1160 mm respectively. on July 20, 2015 whereas experiments for heating with hu-
midification mode was conducted on December 27, 2015 and
2.2. Silica gel coated heat exchanger December 28, 2015.
For cooling in summer, the system had been operated for,
SCHE is constructed on the basic structure of shell and tube firstly regeneration process, then rest time and finally for de-
type heat exchanger with water capacity of 17.3 L as shown humidification process. During the regeneration process,
in Fig. 2. It has 64 aluminium tubes having a diameter of experimental setup was exposed to the Sun at 09:00 hr and
25.4 mm. The column chromatography silica gel is used as the reading was recorded from 10:00 hr to 14:00 hr. The valves 2,
coating desiccant material in this heat exchanger. Firstly, the 4 were opened while the valves 1, 3, 5, 6 were closed. The evacu-
silica gel particles are coated on the aluminium tubes of heat ated tube solar water heater produced the hot water and this
exchanger and then the aluminium tubes are dried and soaked hot water was transferred to the SCHE through connecting pipes
in the silica gel solution repeatedly. The weight of silica gel due to thermosyphon phenomenon. Then the regeneration air
coated on aluminium tubes is 1.7 kg. (ambient air) was pumped in the SCHE with the help of axial
fan. The water vapours were transferred from the desiccant
2.3. Cooling tower material to the regeneration air due to vapour pressure dif-
ference. The desiccant material was completely regenerated
The cooling tower is used to produce cooling water for SCHE at 14:00 hr then the hot water was drained out from the SCHE.
during the dehumidification process and also for heat ex- A rest time period of 1 hour was maintained between the re-
changer in pre-cooling dehumidification. It has a cylindrical generation and dehumidification process, so that the desiccant
drum with a water capacity of 50 L and a cellulose pad having material could transfer its regeneration heat to the atmo-
a rectangular cross sectional area of 610 305 mm2 with a width sphere. Now, the dehumidification process was started at
of 51 mm. A water pump is used to circulate cooling water in 15:00 hr. The valves 1, 3, 5, 6 were opened while the valves 2,
SCHE and heat exchanger. The outlet water of the SCHE and 4 were closed and the cooling water was circulated in the SCHE
heat exchanger is sprayed on the cellulose pad to regenerate and heat exchanger. The process air (state A) first entered in
the cooling water. the heat exchanger in which it was sensibly cooled to state
B. After being cooled, the process air (state B) flowed through
2.4. Direct evaporative cooling unit the SCHE in which it was dehumidified and cooled to state C.
Finally, the process air was cooled to state D by DEC. The de-
DEC is used for post cooling of process air after dehumidifi- humidification process was completed at 18:00 hr as the
cation process. It has a rectangular container with a water desiccant material was completely saturated.
54 international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163
(a)
(b)
Fig. 1 (a) Schematic diagram and (b) photograph of the experimental setup.
international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163 55
Fig. 2 Three-dimensional view, schematic diagram and photographic view of the SCHE.
For heating in winter, outlet air of regeneration process sup- (ambient air) to low vapour pressure (desiccant material). At
plied the required heating and humidification effect. In this 00:00 hr, the desiccant material was completely saturated. In
mode the system did not require heat exchanger, cooling tower the next morning, at 09:00 hr, the experimental setup had been
and DEC. The system had been operated for, firstly adsorp- exposed to the Sun. Then the regeneration process was started.
tion process and then for regeneration process. In the adsorption The evacuated tube solar water heater produced the hot water
process was started at 18:00 hr. The ambient air was pumped and this hot water was transferred to SCHE through connect-
in SCHE. The adsorption of desiccant material started because ing pipes due to thermosyphon phenomenon. The process air
water vapour was transferred from high vapour pressure (ambient air) was pumped into SCHE, in which it was heated
Fig. 4 Different process modes: (a) cooling and dehumidification (b) heating and humidification plotted in a psychometric
chart.
56 international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163
and humidified (states AC) and the data were recorded from 5.1. For cooling with dehumidification mode
11:00 hr to 16:30 hr. At 16:30 hr, the desiccant material was com-
pletely regenerated then it was unable to add moisture in Performances of the system are evaluated in terms of regen-
process air. eration rate, dehumidification rate, cooling capacity and thermal
coefficient of performance (COPth).
Regeneration rate ( RC ) can be given as
1
a (hin (SCHE) hout (SCHE) )
Cooling effect = m (6)
z f y1 2 f y2 2 f yn
2 2 2 2 2
= + ++ (2)
z y1 z y2 z yn z where hin (SCHE) and hout (SCHE) are the enthalpies of the process
air at the inlet and outlet of the SCHE.
where f is a function of independent variable, y1 , y2, etc. stand The cooling capacity of the system can be given as
for the variables of the function, y1 , y2 etc. are the abso-
lute error associated with the variables and z means the a (hin hout )
Cooling capacity = m (7)
z
relative error. Based on these relationships, the test relative un-
certainties are given as in Table 2. Thermal coefficient of performance of the system ( COPth )
can be defined as the ratio of cooling capacity ( Q C ) to total solar
radiation energy ( Q s ).
5. Performance indices
tDE
a (hin hout )
m
0
t DE
The thermal performance of the system is evaluated sepa- COPth = Q c Q = (8)
0 IAp
tR
s
rately for cooling with dehumidification mode and heating with
humidification mode. tR
where hin and hout are the enthalpies of process air at the inlet increases with solar intensity, but after 12:45 hr solar inten-
and outlet of the system, I is the solar intensity, Ap is the area sity decreases and hot water temperature still increases this
of solar collector, t DE and t R are the dehumidification time is because the collector temperature is higher than the water
period and regeneration time period respectively. temperature. The average hot water temperature is 64.1 C with
average solar intensity of 872 W/m2.
5.2. For heating with humidification mode The regeneration rate of desiccant material increases with
the hot water temperature to its maximum value of 0.57 kg/
Performances of the system in this mode are evaluated in terms hr at 12:15 hr. This is because, if the surface temperature of
of humidification rate, thermal coefficient of performance desiccant material increases, water vapour pressure in the pores
(COPth). of desiccant material also increases which results in mois-
Humidification rate ( RC ) can be given as ture transfer from desiccant material to regeneration air at high
rate. After 12:15 hr, water vapour pressure in pores becomes
a ( Yout (SCHE) Yin (SCHE) )
RC = m (9) low because of continuous transfer of moisture, which results
in a continuous decrement in the regeneration rate irrespec-
The heating capacity of system can be given as tive of increase in the water temperature.
Fig. 7a shows the inlet and outlet air conditions of the system
a (hout hin )
Heating capacity = m (10) on psychometric chart. The temperature and humidity ratio
of the process air at inlet vary from 36.2 C to 34 C and 19.3 g/
Thermal coefficient of performance of the system ( COPth ) kg to 20.7 g/kg respectively. This is a general behaviour of
can be calculated in this mode, which can be given as ambient air in north India during an evening of the summer.
The temperature and humidity ratio of the process air at outlet
a (hout hin )
m vary from 27 C to 26 C and 15.9 g/kg to 20.5 g/kg respec-
COPth = (11) tively. Thus the results demonstrate a high potential of the
IAp
system at domestic level during the summer, even though the
supply air condition does not lie in the comfort zone. Fig. 7b
shows the average thermodynamic process of the system.
6. Results and discussion Firstly, the process air is pre-cooled (states AB) with an average
temperature of 4.1 C and this result is defending the utiliza-
The system performance has been tested under northern Indian tion of heat exchanger before dehumidification process.
climatic conditions which is evaluated by the inlet and outlet Then the air is cooled and dehumidified (states BC) with
air conditions, which is measured in terms of temperature and an average temperature and humidity ratio of 1.5 C and
relative humidity. The mass flow rate of the process and re- 3.2 g/kg respectively. This result shows that the SCHE has an
generation air is 0.046 kg/s. ability to handle the latent load and sensible load simultane-
ously. DEC cools down (states CD) the process air with an
6.1. Cooling results in summer average temperature of 3 C.
The cooling and dehumidification process was started at
Figs. 5 and 6 demonstrate the regeneration performance. The 15:00 hr. Fig. 8 shows the variation of the dehumidification rate
hot water temperature of the SCHE increases continuously to of process air and ambient air humidity ratio with time. Ini-
its maximum value 74.8 C and then slightly decreases at the tially, the dehumidification rate is maximum (0.71 kg/hr), this
end. The results show that the hot water temperature is because, at that time, the water vapour pressure in the pores
900
Solar intensity
65
(W/m2)
850
60
800
55
750
50 700
45 650
40 600
Fig. 5 Variation in hot water temperature of the SCHE and solar intensity with time on July 20, 2015.
58 international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163
0.6 75
Regeneration rate (kg/h)
70
0.5
Temperture (C)
65
0.4
60
0.3
55
0.2
50
0.1 45
0 40
Fig. 6 Variation in the regeneration rate of desiccant material and hot water temperature of the SCHE with time on July 20,
2015.
of desiccant material is low and with the dehumidification the system. Latent cooling depends upon the adsorption ca-
process pores are filled by water vapours, this results a con- pacity of desiccant material which decreases continuously
tinuous decrement in the dehumidification rate. The average during the dehumidification process, so this leads to signifi-
dehumidification rate is 0.42 kg/hr. cant decrement in the latent cooling. The performance of the
The average dehumidification rate of the process air is in- DEC unit depends upon dry air produced by the SCHE so per-
creased by 15.3% by using pre-cooling dehumidification as formance of the DEC also decreases with the dehumidification
compared to without pre-cooling dehumidification at nearly process. The average cooling capacity of the system is 648 W.
similar regeneration and dehumidification conditions of the The average COPth of the system in cooling with dehumidifi-
desiccant material. This is because, with the decrease in tem- cation mode is 0.45.
perature of the desiccant materials, the adsorption capacity The performance of direct evaporative cooling unit depends
of the desiccant material increases. The average cooling water upon the dehumidified air produced by the SCHE. Fig. 12 rep-
temperature is 27.6 C. resents the inlet and outlet process air conditions of DEC. As
Fig. 9 shows the variation in cooling effect produced by the the outlet of the SCHE is the inlet of DEC, the humidity ratio
heat exchanger with time. The cooling effect produced by the of the process air at inlet of the DEC increases continuously
heat exchanger depends on the cooling water temperature of i.e. it approaches to ambient air humidity ratio, this is because
cooling tower. The cooling effect does not change signifi- of adsorption saturation of the silica gel. This results in a con-
cantly because cooling water temperature varies from 27.4 C tinuous increment in the humidity ratio of the process air at
to 27.8 C. The cooling water temperature further depends on outlet of the DEC. The temperature of the process air at the
ambient air condition. As humidity ratio of the ambient air in- inlet and outlet of the DEC unit decreases continuously during
creases then the temperature of cooling water also increases the process. The temperature difference between the inlet and
slightly. The average cooling effect produced by the heat ex- outlet of the DEC unit decreases more significantly with the
changer is 196 W. process. This is because the evaporation of water in DEC de-
Fig. 10 shows the variation in cooling effect produced by the creases with the increase in the humidity ratio at inlet.
SCHE with time. The SCHE produces latent and sensible cooling
effect simultaneously so the cooling effect produced by the 6.2. Heating performance in winter
SCHE depends on the moisture adsorbed by the silica gel and
circulating cooling water temperature. The adsorption heat is Ge et al. (2013) concluded that heating with humidification sup-
produced by SCHE during dehumidification process. This ad- plied better comfort than direct solar heating thus system has
sorption heat is continuously removed by circulating cooling been operated for heating with humidification mode only. The
water. Initially, the latent cooling dominates on sensible cooling data have been recorded with duration of half hour because
and then sensible cooling dominates over latent cooling because reading does not change significantly in 15 minutes as in summer.
the adsorption capacity of the silica gel decreases with process. Figs. 1316 show the results of the system performance in winter.
The average cooling effect produced by the SCHE is 442 W. The experiment for the adsorption process was started at 18:00 hr
Fig. 11 illustrates the variation in cooling capacity of the on December 27, 2015. Fig. 13 shows the variation in adsorption
system with time. The cooling capacity decreases continu- rate of desiccant material and inlet air humidity ratio with time.
ously from 839 W to 487 W. The cooling capacity of the system Initially, the adsorption rate of the desiccant material is maximum
is a combine effect of sensible and latent cooling produced by (0.38 kg/hr), because the water vapour pressure in the pores of
international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163 59
Fig. 7 (a) Process air conditions at the inlet and outlet of desiccant cooling system. (b) Average thermodynamic process on
psychometric chart.
the desiccant material is low so there is a highest vapour pres- The adsorption rate of the desiccant material or the dehu-
sure difference between pores and air, which leads to a maximum midification rate of process air is very low in winter season
moisture transfer rate. Then it decreases continuously to as compared to summer season. This is due to low humidity
minimum value (0.02 kg/hr). The continuous decrement in ad- ratio of ambient air in winter season (6.5 g/kg) as compared
sorption rate is due to progressive saturation of desiccant material. to summer season (19.8 g/kg).
60 international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163
Humidity ratio
0.5 0.015
0.4
0.3 0.01
0.2
0.005
0.1
0 0
15:00 15:15 15:30 15:45 16:00 16:15 16:30 16:45 17:00 17:15 17:30 17:45 18:00
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 8 Variation in the dehumidification rate of process air with time on July 20, 2015.
250
200
Cooling effect (W)
150
100
50
0
15:00 15:15 15:30 15:45 16:00 16:15 16:30 16:45 17:00 17:15 17:30 17:45 18:00
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 9 Variation in cooling effect produced by the heat exchanger with time on July 20, 2015.
Fig. 14 shows the variation of hot water temperature of the ture difference depends upon the hot water temperature of the
SCHE, solar intensity and inlet and outlet process air tempera- SCHE.
tures with time on December 28, 2015. It is observed from the Fig. 15 represents the variation of the humidification rate
recorded data that with an average solar intensity of 645 W/ of the process air and ambient air humidity ratio. Ambient air
m2 and average ambient air temperature of 14 C, the average humidity does not change much. The humidification rate of
increment in process air temperature is 13.3 C. The tempera- the process air increases with the hot water temperature to
700
600
Cooling effect (W)
500
400
300
200
100
0
15:00 15:15 15:30 15:45 16:00 16:15 16:30 16:45 17:00 17:15 17:30 17:45 18:00
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 10 Variation in cooling effect produced by the SCHE with time on July 20, 2015.
international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163 61
700
Fig. 11 Variation in cooling capacity of the system with time on July 20, 2015.
0.019
Humidity ratio
30
0.018
29
0.017
28
0.016
27
26 0.015
25 0.014
24 0.013
15:00 15:15 15:30 15:45 16:00 16:15 16:30 16:45 17:00 17:15 17:30 17:45 18:00
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 12 Variation in humidity ratio and temperature of process air at inlet and outlet of direct evaporative cooling unit with
time on July 20, 2015.
its maximum value of 0.69 kg/hr at 14:30 hr and then it de- increases the water vapour pressure in the pores of desic-
creases to its minimum value of 0.03 kg/hr. This is because, with cant material. So the moisture is transfer from desiccant
increase in hot water temperature of the SCHE, the tempera- material to process air. After 14:30 hr, the amount of water
ture of desiccant material also increases, which further vapour in the pores of desiccant material decreases which
0.35 0.007
(Kgwater vapour /kg dry air)
0.3 0.006
Humidity ratio
0.25 0.005
0.2 0.004
0.15 0.003
0.1 0.002
0.05 0.001
0 0
18:00 18:30 19:00 19:30 20:00 20:30 21:00 21:30 22:00 22:30 23:00 23:30 00:00
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 13 Variation in adsorption rate of desiccant material and inlet air humidity ratio with time on December 27, 2015.
62 international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163
Hot water temperature Inlet air temperature Outlet air temperature Solar Intensity
70 900
800
50
600
40 500
30 400
300
20
200
10 100
0 0
11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 13:00 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 14 Variation in hot water temperature of SCHE, solar intensity and inlet and outlet air temperature with time on
December 28, 2015.
0.6 0.006
Humidity ratio
0.5 0.005
0.4 0.004
0.3 0.003
0.2 0.002
0.1 0.001
0 0
11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 13:00 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 15 Variation in humidification rate of process air and inlet air humidity ratio with time on December 28, 2015.
international journal of refrigeration 69 (2016) 5163 63
1200 1.4
1.2
Heating capicity (W)
1000
1
COPth
800
0.8
600
0.6
400 0.4
200 0.2
0 0
11:00 11:30 12:00 12:30 13:00 13:30 14:00 14:30 15:00 15:30 16:00 16:30
Time of day (hours)
Fig. 16 Variation in heating capacity and COPth of the system with time on December 28, 2015.
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