Energy saving potential of a solar assisted desiccant air conditioning system for different types of storage

Abstract

In this study, the performances of a solar energy assisted desiccant air conditioning system with different types of storage materials are numerically investigated. In this study four types of storage materials (paraffin wax, stearic acid, capric‐palmitic, and CaCl2·6H2O) are used to obtained the better storage materials can be use for a solar energy assisted desiccant air conditioning system. The numerical results show that, at the same operating conditions the average percentage of energy saving potential approximately reached to 75.86%, 78%, 72.4%, and 64.6% for using paraffin wax, stearic acid, capric‐palmitic and CaCl2·6H2O as a thermal storage materials, respectively as compared to the case without storage materials and solar energy. The life cycle savings reached to 1727.5, 1997.6, 1766.1, and 1534.6 $for using paraffin wax, stearic acid, capric‐palmitic and CaCl2·6H2O as a storage materials, respectively at the same energy cost of 0.039 $/kWh. The results shows that the stearic acid represents a better thermal storage materials use in a solar assisted desiccant air conditioning with thermal storage materials. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 1448–1454, 2018