Technical Bulletin 1

Refrigerant Dehumidification Technology

I
NTRODUCTION
This technical bulletin will describe the refrigeration process used in a mechanical dehumidifier. In addition, it will describe key design features of the major components. enters the evaporator coil. (Point B Figures 1 and 3) Heat transferred from the air and energy from water vapor condensing on the evaporator coil convert the refrigerant completely to vapor. Desert Aire's TXV has a variable orifice that regulates the amount of pressure drop across the valve. This maintains temperature of vapor at 12F (6C) higher at outlet of the evaporator than at the inlet of the evaporator coil. This temperature difference is called superheat. (Line CD, Figure 1) This superheated vapor now goes to the compressor, which acts as the other separating device between the high and low-pressure sides. (Point D, Figures 1 and 3) As its name implies, it compresses the refrigerant, thereby increasing the pressure to between 200 psi and 270 psi. The refrigerant also acts as the compressor's cooling device, so the refrigerant picks up additional heat during this step. The refrigerant is now a hot gas, typically above 130F (55C). (Point E, Figures 1 and 3) As the hot gas enters the condenser it is cooled by air or water until it reaches its condensation point and is converted to a liquid. It is at a high relative pressure, but the change of state (gas to liquid) gives up significant energy, thereby cooling to a hot liquid near 90F. The liquid refrigerant then flows through a receiver until it is needed to repeat the cycle. (Point F, Figures 1 and 3)

EFRIGERANT PROCESS

The best way to understand what is happening in a refrigerant-based dehumidifier is to keep in mind the impact pressure has on the boiling point of a fluid, and that energy will migrate from hot to cold. It is common knowledge that it takes longer to boil an egg at 5,000 feet (1,600 m) than it does at sea level. At higher altitudes there is less pressure, which lowers the point at which water boils. At 5,000 feet (1,600 m), water boils at 202F, (94C) while at sea level it boils at 212F (100C). Refrigerant behaves just like water in that the boiling point changes at different pressures. Refer to Table 1 for examples of R22's various boiling points. Pressure Temp. Pressure (PSI) (PSI) (F) 50 60 80 100 120 26 34 48 59 69 140 160 180 200 220 Temp. Pressure Temp. (F) (F) (PSI) 78 87 94 101 108 240 260 275 290 320 114 120 124 128 136

Liquid Only
Table 1 - R22 Pressure/Temperature Relationships

Liquid/Vapor
Condenser

Vapor Only

Supercooling

We will choose the starting point of the refrigeration cycle at the inlet of the thermal expansion valve (TXV). The TXV creates a pressure drop across its internal orifice, which separates the dehumidifier's refrigerant system into two halves: high side and low side. (Point A, Figures 1 and 3) As the refrigerant leaves the TXV, it starts to boil because the pressure is reduced to approximately 50 to 90 psi. The refrigerant is a mixture of cold saturated vapor and liquid as it

Pressure

A TXV

Evaporator
B C

Compressor D Superheat

Enthalpy
Figure 1 - Refrigeration Process

D EHUMIDIFICATION COMPONENTS
The optimization of dehumidification in the refrigeration process requires careful design and selection of the systems components. The design becomes more complicated when a wide range of inlet conditions occur and multiple condensers are used to allow year-round control.

Evaporator Coil Design

An evaporator must be designed to transfer the required energy. Common variables used to design the evaporator include air volume, number of rows of tubes, and type and amount of fins per inch. An air conditioner will generally use three (3) or four (4) rows with 400 cfm per ton (12,000 BTU's) to be removed. This combination provides a high sensible-to-latent ratio, which is key to the system achieving a high EER (energy efficiency ratio). A dehumidifier will use six (6) to eight (8) rows with a reduced air volume of 200 cfm per ton. This provides a high MRE (moisture removal efficiency) value. This becomes important in high humidity applications such as pool facilities, industrial plants and treatment of 100% outside air. The second major impact is that the air conditioner type coil creates an approach temperature (the difference between leaving air temperature across the coil and the actual refrigerant temperature in the coil) of 12F to 15F (6C to 7C), while the dehumidifier design creates an 8F to 10F (4C to 5C) approach. This is important in part-load situations where the leaving air temperature limits are 47F for the A/C design and 40F (5C) for the dehumidifier before the coil starts to reach 32F (0C) and hot gas bypass would be required.

Compressor
Desert Aire uses scroll technology in all of its units (except <2hp ) to provide the most favorable energy output for every electrical input. In addition, its design reduces the number of parts and provides long life. Compressors put out a variable amount of energy depending on the pressure differential of the high and low sides. The greater the differential, the harder the compressor must work to overcome the difference and the less it can output. Therefore, the designer must know the dynamics of the system before compressor performance can be determined. Refer to Figure 2 for an example of the significant variance in compressor capacity at typical conditions.
COLD 55% 100%

Outside Ambient

HOT

40% LOW

75%

A
EXPANSION VALVE

Internal Load

HIGH

RECEIVER TANK

Figure 2 - Relative Compressor Capacity

EVAPORATOR COIL COMPRESSOR

A compressor is selected for the system to produce a given output at one design point. For example, to cool and dehumidify 1000 cfm of air from 95F db / 78F wb to 55F dewpoint, you need 82 MBH of energy. The compressor must provide this amount with the high and low pressures balanced by the evaporator and condenser coils.

CONDENSER COIL

D
Figure 3 - Refrigerant flow

TECHNICAL BULLETIN 1

Refrigerant Dehumidification Technology

Location
TXV discharge Evap. discharge

Pressure Temp. (PSI) (F)

50 to 90 50 to 90 26-54 38-66 >130 90

Description
Cold, saturated liquid + vapor Superheated vapor Hot gas Hot liquid

Hot Gas Reheat Condenser Design

All dehumidifiers contain a hot gas reheat (HGR) condenser to avoid overcooling the space while dehumidifying. If the HGR condenser is to reject the total heat of rejection, then extra air must be bypassed around the evaporator coil. This increases the air volume and makes the leaving air temperature 100F to 110F (38C to 43C). In pool facilities, this air can help maintain the 82F to 86F (28C to 30C) interior temperature. For other applications no bypass air is allowed. A typical example is a 100% outside air unit where the entire air volume must be treated. In these types of units, the internal HGR coil must be partially sized and combined in series with another condenser to reject all of the energy. There are two (2) basic designs when doing simultaneous rejection: The first is to send the hot gas to the alternate condenser and then after it condenses, send the hot liquid to the reheat coil. This is known as liquid sub-cooling. The main advantage of this technique is its ability to provide more stable leaving air temperatures in a range from 58F to 85F (14C to 29C). At given entering air conditions, the output will balance at some temperature in the range and remain stable and not be impacted by the variability in the alternate condenser. The major drawback is that the hot liquid only has enough energy to reheat the air at part-load situations to between 50F and 65F (10C and 18C). The second design is to send the hot gas to the reheat coil first and then to the alternate condenser. Essentially, you are trying to get two coils to act as one. Since the system is using hot gas, it has significantly more energy to do more re-heating even at part-load days. In its basic form, this system creates sharp drops in leaving air temperatures because of the changes caused by the flooding valve used to maintain system pressures. Like a toilet bowl, the condenser is slow to fill, but fast to drain. An enhancement to this is to use a modulating valve to control the amount of hot gas to the HGR condenser. Through a temperature sensor downstream, the valve can maintain precise leaving air temperature.

Compr. discharge 200 to 270 Cond. discharge 200 to 270

Table 2- R22 Typical Refrigerant Conditions

Condenser Design
The condenser or combination of condensers must be sized for the total heat of rejection (THR) of the system. There are three (3) types used: reheat, remote air-cooled and watercooled. Remote Air-cooled condensers are placed outside the conditioned space to reject excess energy to the outdoors. A water-cooled condenser would use pool water, cooling-tower water or chilled water as the medium to reject the excess energy. These can be cost-effectively sized to optimize the condensing pressure/temperature for minimum energy usage. Air-cooled condensers must balance their physical size and air volume with a maximum condensing temperature. Generally, a maximum of 120F (49C) condensing temperature is used to balance first cost with operating efficiency. Most systems are sized to achieve a 25F (-3.9C) differential which would require a maximum outside air design of 95F (35C). When air temperatures go higher than 95F, the condensing coil must be designed with more surface area because the difference between ambient and 120F condensing temperature is smaller, yet the amount of energy to be rejected has not changed. Because dehumidifiers operate in many condensing modes, there needs to be a method of controlling the pressure of these elements. Desert Aire uses flooding control, which allows liquid refrigerant to back up into the condenser, thereby reducing the effective surface area of the coil. The colder the air or water entering a condenser, the less coil surface is required; conversely, the hotter the air or water, the more surface is required to maintain the desired pressure. This flooding control allows a dehumidifier to reject energy to an outdoor condenser in a range from 0F to 95F (-18C to 35C) and water temperature from 45F to 105F (7C to 40C).

Receivers
A receiver is just a storage vessel for liquid refrigerant. Since most dehumidifiers use several condensers, each with a variable requirement for refrigerant, there must be a place to store the liquid not in circulation. In addition, many dehumidifiers use outdoor condensers that may need to operate over a wide range of ambient temperatures, causing a significant change in the volume of liquid refrigerant required to operate. A dehumidifier without a receiver must be limited in its operational range or else experience many problems in controlling moisture removal.

OT GAS DEFROST

Hot gas defrost is used to intentionally freeze the evaporator coil and then defrost the ice and remove it from the system as water. Such a system measures the internal refrigerant temperatures and only defrosts on demand for a short duration. The drawback is that this technique does not dehumidify during the defrost cycle, and can therefore only be applied on re-circulation systems such as ice rinks.

ONCLUSION

OT GAS BYPASS

Hot gas bypass is a technique used to prevent a coil from freezing up at low load conditions. As a system reaches its minimum approach temperature, the refrigerant temperature drops below 32F (0C) and any water vapor in the air passing over the coil will freeze. By installing a small feeder tube from the discharge side of the compressor to the coil's inlet header, a small amount of hot gas can be metered into the coil to raise the refrigerant's temperature above the freezing point. This creates a false load on the system and reduces the efficiency of the system since part of the electrical energy used to run the compressor is short-circuited to create the load. However, this small electrical cost can save a major compressor failure should the coil continue to freeze up and starve the compressor into failure.

Dehumidifiers operate in many modes of operation in order to insure continuous moisture removal. To achieve this, the systems design incorporates many different critically sized components that must function seamlessly. Each mode can be explained by understanding how each refrigerant process moves along the pressure-enthalpy diagram of R22 shown in Figure 1.

8300 West Sleske Court Milwaukee, WI 53223 (414) 357-7400 FAX: (414) 357-8501 www.desert-aire.com
101 10/02