Abstract
To decrease indoor relative humidity and have relaxing environments, small dehumidifiers are widely used in tropical climatic. Due to the benefits of eco-friendly, small size and silence operation, the thermoelectric dehumidifier has gained interest but has limited practical application due to poor efficiency. Therefore, this study investigates the dehumidification characteristics of the thermoelectric module powered by a photovoltaic system for the production of fresh water under real climatic conditions. The performance of a novel prototype named as the Photo-Thermoelectric Dehumidifier (PVTE-D) was investigated both numerically and experimentally in different combinations of airflow rate and input power. The results obtained from the experiment suggested that the water condensate collection was increased by increasing the input power from a PV panel to the TE-D. In the month of May, the maximum water condensate collection of 1,852.3 mL/hr was attained at the input supply of 6 A and 5 V to the PVTE-D system. In the majority of cases, when the airflow rate is below 0.013 kg/s, maximum collections of water condensate have been achieved. This study provides a detailed understanding of the optimally suitable structural parameters of the PVTE-D under different operating conditions and reveals a novel configuration for higher water condensation capacity.
Highlights
In recent decades, population and industry development have contributed to a dramatic rise in pollution from CO2 emissions and the issue of fresh water shortages (Dickens et al 2020)
The result shows that variation in the input current to the PVTE-D system had a significant effect on the water condensate production and temperature variation of hot and cold sides of TEMs
The statistical result shows that there was a significant difference in water condensate production and temperature on both sides of the TEM in the combined effects of input power, ambient temperature and relative humidity
Summary
Population and industry development have contributed to a dramatic rise in pollution from CO2 emissions and the issue of fresh water shortages (Dickens et al 2020). Most tropical countries have high relative humidity, average annual rainfall, ambient temperature and solar irradiance and are classified as humid countries (Han et al 2020) One of these tropical countries is Malaysia, which is in South-East Asia. The humidity level inside the test room was maintained at the prescribed level by condensing the airstream moisture on the cool surfaces of fin and coil of the traditional air-conditioning systems (Khorram et al 2020). These conventional air-conditioning systems consume substantial amounts of electrical energy, causing a peak load on the electric grid, in summertime (Kalluri et al 2020). The refrigerant used in the conventional AC system, causes permanent damage to the ozone layer, leading to the risk of exposure to ultraviolet radiation throughout life
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