Front. Energy Power Eng. China 2007, 1(1): 8590 DOI 10.

1007/s11708-007-0008-8

RESEARCH ARTICLE

SHI Mingheng, DU Bin, ZHAO Yun

Investigation on regeneration and energy storage characteristics of a solar liquid desiccant air-conditioning system

Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2007

Abstract Solar liquid desiccant air-conditioner is a new air-conditioning system in which liquid desiccant can be regenerated by solar energy and energy can be stored in the form of chemical energy in the liquid desiccant. In this paper regeneration and energy storage characteristics were studied theoretically and experimentally. Two criterion equations for heat and mass transfer in the regeneration process were obtained. The main factors that influence the regeneration process were analyzed. A principal solar liquid desiccant air-conditioning system under energy storage operating mode is proposed. Keywords solar energy, desiccant, regeneration, energy storage, air-conditioning

Introduction

Air-conditioning systems that utilize solar energy have received more attention recently because they are economical, clean, simple to construct and easy to operate [12]. The solar liquid desiccant air-conditioning system is a new and promising system in which liquid desiccant can be regenerated by solar energy and solar energy can be stored in the form of chemical energy in the liquid desiccant. The dehumidifier is one of the most important components in a liquid desiccant air conditioner. The liquid desiccants that have been studied and applied include triethylene glycol, LiBr, CaCl2 and LiCl, etc. Ertas [3] reported that by mixing CaCl2 and LiCl in a ratio of 1:1 the best ratio of performance over price of liquid desiccant air-conditioning system can be obtained, and this solution mixture can easily be regenerated.
Translanted from Acta Energlae Solaris Sinica, 2006, 27(1): 4954 [: ] SHI Mingheng ( ), DU Bin, ZHAO Yun Department of Power Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China E-mail: mhshiu@seu.edu.cn

The liquid desiccants can store a large amount of chemical energy even at the environmental temperature and pressure, with storage capacities of up to 1 000 MJ m3, which is more than that of water, rock, ice and other liquidsolid phasechanging materials. Little research on the regeneration process has been reported in the literature. In 1969, a solar liquid desiccant refrigerator was made using LiCl solution, in which liquid desiccant film flowed down on the roof and was heated by solar radiation [4]. But the open cycle caused the liquid desiccant to be easily polluted, thus affecting its normal operation. The efficiency and stability of the regeneration process had a great impact on the performance of a liquid desiccant air-conditioning system. Thus, it is urgent that an efficient solar liquid desiccant air-conditioner be developed. Furthermore, because solar energy is non-continuous at daytime, it is necessary to have an energy storage system, and study its working characteristics and performance under different solar energy storage operating modes. In this paper regeneration, energy storage mechanism and working characteristics of liquid desiccants are studied theoretically and experimentally. A principal solar liquid desiccant air-conditioning system under energy storage operating mode is proposed.

2 Regeneration mechanism of liquid desiccants

The regeneration process occurs when water is evaporated from the diluted desiccant by heating the solution. After a dehumidification process, the diluted desiccant solution becomes a condensed solution. The driving potential for mass transfer in regeneration is the difference between vapor partial pressure in the processed air (pv) and in the desiccant (ps) at their interface. The concentration and temperature of the desiccant solution are the two main factors that influence the vapor pressure of the desiccant at the airsolution interface. ps>pv can be achieved and the regeneration process will start if the diluted desiccant is heated to a certain temperature.

86 The regenerator used commonly is a packed tower with a large contact area between the air and the solution as shown in Fig. 1. During the regeneration process, the diluted solution is heated by solar radiation sprays at the top of the tower, and the surrounding heated or unheated air passes through the packed bed along or against the current to bring out the water vapor from the solution. The walls of the regenerator should be kept adiabatic to minimize heat loss. 3.1 Convective mass transfer during the regeneration process The driving potential for the convective mass transfer during the regeneration process is caused by the difference between the vapor partial pressure in the processed air (pv) and in the desiccant (ps) at their interface. To simplify the analysis, the above driving potential for the convective mass transfer during regeneration is replaced by the difference between the water content in the air and the solution. Assume d* is the water content in the air at the interface between air and solution under equilibrium conditions. The average water content difference in the mass transfer process is d = 1 H

(d * - d ) d h

(1)

where H is the height of a regenerator and d is the local water content in the air. If an average mass transfer coefficient of the regeneration is defined as Dave, the mass transfer equation becomes M e = ra Dave A d (2)

where Me is the regeneration rate, g/s; and A is mass transfer area, m2. Because the mass transfer area in a packed bed is hard to measure, the total area mass transfer coefficient of regeneration Das is defined as Das = Dave A
Fig. 1 Packed tower regenerator

(3)

3 Analysis of heat and mass transfer during the regeneration process

Regeneration is a complex heat and mass transfer process. Figure 2 shows a unit volume dV during the regeneration process, in which tair, mair, tsol, msol are temperature and mass flow rate of the air and the solution respectively.

The unit of Das is m3/s. If the regeneration rate Me is measured experimentally, the total area mass transfer coefficient of regeneration Das can be determined from Eqs. (1)(3). It is obvious that with the increase in the inlet temperature of solution tsol.in and inlet air water content dair.in, the mass transfer coefficient Das will decrease; with an increase in the inlet concentration of the desiccant solution Csol.in, inlet air temperature tair.in, air and solution mass flow rate mair, msol,, the mass transfer coefficient Das will increase. The average mass transfer coefficient Dave can be calculated as Dave = Das/WA* (4)

where A* is the maximum mass transfer area and W is the covered rate of liquid film, at an average of 0.70.9. The Sherwood number for the regeneration process Sh can be obtained as Sh = Dave La Da (5)

where Da is the mass diffusivity of water in air and La is a character length. La can take the distances between two packed layers. The Reynolds number for air flowing in the regenerator channel Rea can be defined as Rea = ra ua La ma (6)

Fig. 2 Unit volume of regeneration

87 a and ma are average velocity and dynamic viscosity where u of air respectively. Thus, the mass transfer equation for the regeneration process can be expressed as Sh = ARean Scam 3.2 Convective heat transfer during the regeneration process During the regeneration process, the removal of water from the solution causes a significant decrease of the solution temperature. Meanwhile the air receives heat from the solution by convective heat transfer, which causes its temperature to increase. Assuming that the inlet and outlet height of air in the regenerator are 0 and H, the average temperature difference during the regeneration heat transfer process can be defined as t = 1 H (7) Ref. [5]. The packed bed was constructed by a type of helix screen plastic material. The bed height is 0.5 m and the distance between two layers is 0.01 m. CaCl2 solution is used as the test desiccant solution. The experimental parameters are as follows. Concentration of inlet solution Csol.in: 37.9%46.0%; Temperature of inlet solution (regeneration temperature) tsol.in: 5075 C; Mass flow rate of solution msol: 8.837.8 g/s; Inlet water content of air dair.in: 17.3021.70 g/kg; Inlet air temperature tair.in: 28.934.1C; Air mass flow rate mair.in: 3050 g/s. The heat and mass transfer correlations during the regeneration process based on the experimental results are
0.65 Sh = 6.6 x 10 3 Rea Sca2.19

(12) (13)

Nu = 8.37 x 10 Re

1.17 a

Pr

2.19 a

(tsol -tair ) d h

(8)

If the average heat transfer coefficient during the regeneration process is have, the contacted area of airsolution is A, then the heat transfer equation during the regeneration process is Qe = have A t (9)

The applied Re range of these two correlations is 170<Rea<290. The outlet temperature of air from the regenerator is taken as the character temperature. It is shown that with the increase of Rea, the heat and mass transfer during the regeneration process will be enhanced. To prevent the thermal energy of the solution from being lost, the outlet temperature of the air should not be increased greatly. The convective heat transfer during the regeneration process should be kept at a lower level. 4.2 Analysis and discussion (1) Influence of air and solution mass flow rate. Figure 3 shows the results of regeneration rates that correlate air and solution mass flow rate at the conditions of dair.in = 17.3 g/kg and 21.3 g/kg. It is apparent that the regeneration rates increases with the increase of air and solution mass flow rate. (2) Influence of air water content. A comparison is made to study the influence of water content in the air at dair.in = 17.3 g/kg and dair.in = 21.3 g/kg on regeneration rates, which is shown in Fig. 4. It is shown that regeneration rates at dair.in = 17.3 g/kg are lager than those at dair.in = 21.3 g/kg. Therefore, regeneration rate decreases with the increase of air water content. (3) Influence of regeneration temperature. Figure 5 shows the influence of solution temperature on regeneration rate. The results indicate that an increase in solution temperature will increase the regeneration rate, even for the solution with higher concentration. In general, increasing the inlet solution concentration Csol.in and air inlet water content dair.in will decrease the regeneration rate, which means the condensed solution and damped air would make the regeneration process difficult. Increasing air flow rate mair.in, air inlet temperature tair.in, solution flow rate msol and solution inlet temperature will increase regeneration rate due to the fact that more energy is put into the regeneration process.

Similarly, have A is defined as total area heat transfer coefficient has as has = have A (10)

It is obvious that increasing the inlet temperature of solution tsol.in, air and solution mass flow rate mair and msol will increase has; increasing the inlet solution concentration Csol.in, inlet air temperature tair.in and inlet air mass flow rate dair.in will decrease has. The Nusselt number in the regeneration process Nu and air Reynolds number Rea can be determined as Nu = have La ru L , Rea = a a a ka ma

where ka is the thermal conductivity of the air. The heat transfer correlation during the regeneration process can be expressed as Nu = BRean1 Pram1 (11)

4
4.1

Experimental results and discussion

Experimental results

The experimental regenerator system is shown in Fig. 1. The detailed experimental method and procedure are described in

88

Fig. 3 Influence of air and solution mass flow rate on regeneration

Fig. 4 Influence of air water content on regeneration (a) msol=0.037 5 g/s; (b) msol=0.014 3 g/s

Fig. 5 Influence of temperature on regeneration

(a) msol=0.037 8 g/s; (b) msol=0.014 5 g/s

Energy storage characteristics

In a liquid desiccant air-conditioning system, the energy is stored in the desiccant in the form of chemical energy rather than thermal energy, allowing the storage capacity to be remarkably higher compared with that of ice storage. In

addition, its storage capacity could not be easily dissipated in ordinary storage conditions. Here, the storage capacity of condensed liquid desiccant is defined as the capability of moisture absorption. Meanwhile, the regeneration of liquid desiccant can be achieved by using solar energy and other low-grade heat sources. When condensed desiccant enters a liquid desiccant air-conditioning system, it will

89 produce a cooling effect similar to that in an ice storage device. The storage capacity of liquid desiccant SC is defined as the energy needed for a unit volume diluted desiccant being condensed to a given concentration SC = Gsol.in (jout -jin ) r j = (1- in ) r rdil.sol joutVsol.in jout (14) evaporative cooler (5) to reach the given air-conditioning temperature and humidity, and enters the room. The diluted solution after dehumidification is pumped to the solar collector (1) to be heated. The heated solution enters the regenerator (2) and is condensed by water evaporation. The condensed solution recovers its dehumidification ability and enters the dehumidifier again. The system has a condensed and a diluted solution storage tank. The regulating pump (8) controls the flow rate of the solution based on the solar radiation to stabilize the concentration of the condensed solution. In order to store solar energy during daytime, the collecting area of the solar collector should be large enough to receive more solar energy and store more solution in the tank, which can be used at night. The heated air from the regenerator could be used to heat water in the house to make the best use of energy.

where jout, jin are the mass concentration of the outlet and inlet desiccants in a regenerator, %; rdil.sol is the density of the inlet desiccant and r is the heat of vaporization/condensation of water. Equation (14) shows that the storage capacity depends mainly on the concentration difference between the inlet and outlet desiccant in the regenerator. The larger the concentration difference is, the higher the storage capacity will be. Thus, it is best that the desiccant concentration after regeneration is close to the saturated concentration. For example, if the outlet concentration of LiCl solution after regeneration is a saturated concentration of 53.7% at a temperature of 80C, then the storage capacity is about 1 100 MJ/m3 if the inlet concentration is 35%. For a given regenerator, the main factors that influence the regeneration process are the air solution mass ratio MR and the regeneration temperature. Table 1 shows the variations of storage capacity with the regeneration temperature and concentration at MR = 10.2.
Table 1 The storage capacity of LiCl solution
Regeneration temperature/C 50 Concentration after regeneration/% Storage capacity/ (MJ m3) 34.2 339 55 36.8 492 60 39.6 637 65 43.2 744 70 46.8 926 75 51.1 1 060

Fig. 6 A principal configuration of the solar liquid desiccant air-conditioning system 1. Solar collector; 2. Regenerator; 3. Dehumidifier; 4. Cooler; 5. Evaporative cooler; 6,7. Solution pump; 8. Regulating pump

Conclusions

It is apparent that with the increase in regeneration temperature, the ability of moisture absorption by air is enhanced and the solution after regeneration becomes much more condensed. Since the solution concentration of LiCl is at 75C, which is much closer to the saturated concentration of 53.7%, the regeneration temperature should not increase further due to the crystallization of the solution. Thus, the preferable regeneration temperature for LiCl solution is between 7075C.

6 The operation mode under energy storage condition

A principal configuration of the solar liquid desiccant airconditioning system is shown in Fig. 6. The working processes are as follows. The ambient or recycled air from the room enters the dehumidifier (3) and contacts with the liquid desiccant, during which the desiccant absorbs the moisture in the air. The dried air is then cooled and damped in the

In this paper the regeneration and energy storage characteristics are studied theoretically and experimentally for a solar liquid desiccant air-conditioning system, in which the liquid desiccant can be regenerated by solar energy and energy can be stored in the form of chemical energy in the liquid desiccant. The regeneration process is a complex heat and mass transfer process. The results show that the driving potential for the mass transfer during regeneration is the difference between vapor partial pressure in the processed air (pv) and in the desiccant (ps) at their interface. The concentration and temperature of the desiccant solution are two main factors that influence the vapor pressure of the desiccant at the airsolution interface. Increasing the inlet solution concentration Csol.in and air inlet water content dair.in will decrease the regeneration rate, which means the condensed solution and damped air would make the regeneration process difficult. Increasing air flow rate mair.in, air inlet temperature tair.in, solution flow rate msol and solution inlet temperature will increase the regeneration rate as more energy is put into to the regeneration process. Two criterion Eqs. (12) and (13) for heat and mass transfer during the regeneration process are obtained. The applied Re range of these two correlations is 170<Rea<290.

90 A principal solar liquid desiccant air-conditioning system under energy storage operating mode is proposed.
Acknowledgements The project is supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (Grant No.50276013).

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