Mass transfer research on the regeneration process of an air-conditioning battery system

Abstract

Developing a sustainable and low-carbon society calls for energy conservation of buildings. On this purpose, green air-conditioning systems driven by renewable energy have been encouraged as alternative to the present vapor-compression air-conditioning system. Absorption system is one promising representative, but relatively lower performance impedes its application. To improve, we propose an air-conditioning battery system (ACBS) that evolves from the traditional absorption system. Its COP attains four by incorporating a refrigeration cycle with a battery cycle, realizing energy storage when producing cooling effect. Driven by renewable energy, ACBS is a green air-conditioning system for being environmental friendly with refrigerant water and avoiding the combustion of fossil fuels that emits a large amount of CO2 bringing in environmental issues. The critical part of ACBS is the capacitive deionization (CDI) regeneration process, which concentrates absorbent by electrical adsorption. The mass transfer mechanism of regeneration is important for system optimization. Simulation investigation has been made in this paper to reveal the mechanism. A two-dimensional model has been established and validated to depict the dynamic response at different electric adsorption stages. Analysis has been conducted based on the models to expose the influence of some critical parameters. The results show that the enhancement of COP could exceed 50% with optimum design parameters.