AN-92-03-3 -- The Effect of Absorber Design on the Performance of a Liquid-Desiccant Air Conditioner PDF

The performance of a liquid-desiccant air conditioner was modelled with adiabatic and internally cooled absorbers. The absorbers were configured both as counterflow and cross-flow units. For liquid-desiccant air conditioners that use internally cooled absorbers, thermal coefficient of performance (COP) is a strong function of the desiccant and cooling water flow rates. At flow rates that are approximately an order of magnitude less than current practice, the thermal COP of the liquid-desiccant air conditioner increases by 25%. This improvement results from operating the absorber so that evaporative cooling is increased. At conventional flooding rates, both the adiabatic and internally cooled cross-flow absorbers produce system COPs that are comparable to counterflow units.

KEYWORDS: absorbents, designing, coefficient of performance, desiccants, unit air conditioners, performance, calculating, counterflow heat exchangers, cross flow heat exchangers, heat exchangers, cooling, water flow, evaporative cooling, adiabatic, cooling