Innovative Way to Decrease the Water Consumption of Direct Evaporative Air Cooler

Abstract

In the present study the existing direct evaporative coolers (DEC) is modified in such a way that DEC consume less amount of water and provide better cooling effect. In desert area, water consumption by air cooler is a serious problem. Therefore, the present study addressed this issue and primary objective of the study is to minimize the consumption of water. For this purpose, the property of the endothermic reaction is utilized. There are few salts that produce endothermic reaction if it is diluted in water. Those salt crystals absorb heat from the surrounding environment (water) and ultimately the temperature of the overall solution gets reduced. This cold solution is then passed through honeycomb cooling pad, as a result more amount of air can be cooled using the same volume of water as compared to the traditional air-cooler. Ammonium Chloride (NH4Cl), Ammonium Nitrite (NH4NO3) salts satisfy the basic criteria for the endothermic reaction but NH4Cl will be more useful to use in the air-coolers, as Ammonium Nitrite is costlier and also hazardous. A salt water separator arrangement also attached with modified air-cooler which will help to regenerate Ammonium Chloride crystal from solution with the help of solar energy. In this study, firstly discussed about proposed design of an air-cooler system, which is able to nicely handle chemical solution. Then compared the study with experimental outcome which have been carried out with and without using salt. From the result it has been observed that modified design of air cooler has great potential to improve the traditional air cooler in terms of cooling effect and water consumption.