Volume 28: Closing Carbon Cycles – A Transformation Process Involving Technology, Economy, and Society: Part III

Numerical study on the performance of a dew-point evaporative cooler with a desiccant coated heat exchanger Seung Jin Oh1, Yeongmin Kim, Byng Chan Kang, Yong-yoo Yang, Yoon Jung Ko, Eun I Kim, Kim Choon Ng

Abstract

This study presents an innovative de-coupling cooling technology where latent cooling load and sensible cooling load are handled separately by a desiccant coated heat exchanger (DCHE) based dehumidifier and a dew-point evaporative cooler (DEC). Their performances are investigated numerically by analyzing the heat and mass transfer. Simulation has been carried out for DCHE and examined the output states of the process air, namely the dry-bulb temperature and humidity ratio. Key results revealed that moisture removal capacity (MRC), latent cooling capacity (QL) for DCHE are largely affected by varying air dry-bulb and air wet-bulb temperatures while the almost constant COPth was observed regardless of the variation of temperatures. For the DEC, the higher dew-point effectiveness and wet-bulb effectiveness were observed at the higher dry-bulb temperature and higher humidity ratio while the higher sensible cooling capacity was observed at the higher dry-bulb temperature and lower humidity ratio.

Keywords de-coupling cooling system, desiccant coated heat exchanger, dew-point evaporative cooler, moisture removal capacity, dew-point effectiveness