Modeling and simulation of solar collector/regenerator for liquid desiccant cooling systems

Abstract

Solar liquid collector/regenerator combines solar photothermic transformation and liquid regeneration together for solar energy-driven liquid desiccant cooling systems. A group of dimensionless heat and mass transfer equations describing the heat and mass transfer process in the solar C/R(Collector/Regenerator) were obtained by introducing total temperature difference (Δ T 0) and dimensionless heat loss coefficient ( h ¯ z ) . The increment of solution concentration Δ C was increased 2.9–3.5%/°C and 5.3%/°C for increasing unit inlet temperature of air stream and solution respectively and increased about 6.2%/(g/kg) and 0.9%/(g/kg) for decreasing unit inlet humidity ratio of air and solution concentration. Besides, the increasing number of heat transfer units (NTU), air-to-salt mass flow rate ratio (ASMR) and total temperature difference (Δ T 0) can increase the performance of solution regeneration significantly. Compared to parallel flow regeneration, the performance of counterflow regeneration was increased about 10%.