Investigation on the Performance of a Novel Dehumidifier for a Combined Solar Chimney and Liquid Desiccant Plant

Abstract

A dehumidifier was one of the main component in the hybrid liquid desiccant system and solar chimney micro-plant. The performance of the hybrid liquid desiccant system and solar chimney micro-plant was strongly depended on the performance of it dehumidifier, but it is yet to be analyzed in any of the previous studies. Therefore, moisture removal rate (MRR) and dehumidification effectiveness (ε) were two parameters that had been chosen to evaluate the performance of the cross flow, cellulose panel structured bed dehumidifier in this study. Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) desiccant solution was the only liquid desiccant solution used in this application. From the experiment, it was found that the highest effectiveness of the dehumidifier was about 22.78% and the highest moisture removal rate was about 0.22ml/s. Besides that, parametric analysis had been conducted on five inlet parameters: desiccant inlet concentration, desiccant inlet temperature, inlet air humidity ratio, inlet air mass flow rate and inlet air temperature; the most influencing parameter was found to be the inlet air humidity ratio, ya1. MRR increased by 52.68% and ε of the dehumidifier increased by 48.59% when ya1 increased from 0.0175-0.0200. Finally, three improvement strategies had been recommended: increasing the concentration of liquid desiccant, changing the type of liquid desiccant and increasing the thickness of the dehumidifier.