IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v275y2020ics0306261920309405.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Experimental performance and energy efficiency investigation of composite superabsorbent polymer and potassium formate coated heat exchangers

Author

Listed:
  • Vivekh, P.
  • Bui, D.T.
  • Islam, M.R.
  • Zaw, K.
  • Chua, K.J.

Abstract

The poor efficiency of vapor compression chillers emerges due to the simultaneous treatment of sensible and latent cooling loads. By employing desiccant coated heat exchangers (DCHEs) for removing latent loads, the energy efficiency is enhanced as the conventional cooling coil is used for high-temperature sensible cooling. Currently, DCHEs have limitations due to low sorption capacity, high regeneration temperature, short operating time, corrosion, and deliquescence of the desiccating material. To address these research gaps, we synthesized a composite polymer desiccant by combining a superabsorbent polymer and less corrosive potassium formate salt. Desiccant characterization experiments showed that the new desiccant exhibited 4–8 times gain in sorption capacity when compared to pure/composite silica gel. The dynamic performance studies showed that the cycle time could be extended up to 15 min and 40–50 °C was sufficient for regeneration in contrast to the previous constraint of 5 min and 60–80 °C, respectively. Further, the new composite desiccant removed 3 times higher cooling load than silica gel based DCHEs and recorded 2 times higher thermal efficiency. When integrated with conventional air-conditioners, DCHE could trim up to 50% of the electrical power, and short payback periods of less than 2 years were obtained.

Suggested Citation

  • Vivekh, P. & Bui, D.T. & Islam, M.R. & Zaw, K. & Chua, K.J., 2020. "Experimental performance and energy efficiency investigation of composite superabsorbent polymer and potassium formate coated heat exchangers," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:275:y:2020:i:c:s0306261920309405
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115428
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920309405
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.115428?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ge, T.S. & Zhang, J.Y. & Dai, Y.J. & Wang, R.Z., 2017. "Experimental study on performance of silica gel and potassium formate composite desiccant coated heat exchanger," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 149-158.
    2. Labban, Omar & Chen, Tianyi & Ghoniem, Ahmed F. & Lienhard, John H. & Norford, Leslie K., 2017. "Next-generation HVAC: Prospects for and limitations of desiccant and membrane-based dehumidification and cooling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 330-346.
    3. Vivekh, P. & Bui, D.T. & Wong, Y. & Kumja, M. & Chua, K.J., 2019. "Performance evaluation of PVA-LiCl coated heat exchangers for next-generation of energy-efficient dehumidification," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 733-750.
    4. Chua, K.J. & Chou, S.K. & Islam, M.R., 2018. "On the experimental study of a hybrid dehumidifier comprising membrane and composite desiccants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 934-943.
    5. La, D. & Dai, Y.J. & Li, Y. & Wang, R.Z. & Ge, T.S., 2010. "Technical development of rotary desiccant dehumidification and air conditioning: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 130-147, January.
    6. Zheng, X. & Wang, R.Z. & Ge, T.S. & Hu, L.M., 2015. "Performance study of SAPO-34 and FAPO-34 desiccants for desiccant coated heat exchanger systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(P1), pages 88-94.
    7. Vivekh, P. & Kumja, M. & Bui, D.T. & Chua, K.J., 2018. "Recent developments in solid desiccant coated heat exchangers – A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 778-803.
    8. Karmakar, Avishek & Prabakaran, Vivekh & Zhao, Dan & Chua, Kian Jon, 2020. "A review of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as energy-efficient desiccants for adsorption driven heat-transformation applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    9. Jagirdar, Mrinal & Lee, Poh Seng, 2018. "Mathematical modeling and performance evaluation of a desiccant coated fin-tube heat exchanger," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 401-415.
    10. Ge, T.S. & Dai, Y.J. & Wang, R.Z. & Peng, Z.Z., 2010. "Experimental comparison and analysis on silica gel and polymer coated fin-tube heat exchangers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 2893-2900.
    11. Vivekh, P. & Islam, M.R. & Chua, K.J., 2020. "Experimental performance evaluation of a composite superabsorbent polymer coated heat exchanger based air dehumidification system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    12. Valarezo, Andres S. & Sun, X.Y. & Ge, T.S. & Dai, Y.J. & Wang, R.Z., 2019. "Experimental investigation on performance of a novel composite desiccant coated heat exchanger in summer and winter seasons," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 506-518.
    13. Entezari, Akram & Ge, T.S. & Wang, R.Z., 2018. "Water adsorption on the coated aluminum sheets by composite materials (LiCl + LiBr)/silica gel," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 64-71.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wang, Cong & Yang, Bianfeng & Ji, Xu & Zhang, Ren & Wu, Hailong, 2022. "Study on activated carbon/silica gel/lithium chloride composite desiccant for solid dehumidification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    2. Zheng, Xu & Wan, Tinghao & Zhang, Yu & Ma, Qianling, 2024. "Experimental investigation of a thermo-responsive composite coated heat exchanger for ultra-low grade heat utilization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    3. Chen, W.D. & Vivekh, P. & Liu, M.Z. & Kumja, M. & Chua, K.J., 2021. "Energy improvement and performance prediction of desiccant coated dehumidifiers based on dimensional and scaling analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    4. Zhang, Lige & Spatari, Sabrina & Sun, Ying, 2020. "Life cycle assessment of novel heat exchanger for dry cooling of power plants based on encapsulated phase change materials," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 271(C).
    5. Chen, K. & Zheng, X. & Wang, S.N., 2022. "Investigation on activated carbon-sodium polyacrylate coated aluminum sheets for desiccant coated heat exchanger," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    6. Liu, M. & Prabakaran, V. & Bui, T. & Cheng, G.G. & Pang, W., 2023. "Three-dimensional numerical analysis of fin-tube desiccant-coated heat exchanger for air dehumidification in tropics," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 331(C).
    7. Venegas, Tomas & Qu, Ming & Nawaz, Kashif & Wang, Lingshi, 2021. "Critical review and future prospects for desiccant coated heat exchangers: Materials, design, and manufacturing," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    8. Larisa Gordeeva & Yuri Aristov, 2022. "Adsorbent Coatings for Adsorption Heat Transformation: From Synthesis to Application," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(20), pages 1-25, October.
    9. Bivas Panigrahi & Yu Sheng Chen & Win Jet Luo & Hung Wei Wang, 2020. "Dehumidification Effect of Polymeric Superabsorbent SAP-LiCl Composite Desiccant-Coated Heat Exchanger with Different Cyclic Switching Time," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-16, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Feng, Y.H. & Dai, Y.J. & Wang, R.Z. & Ge, T.S., 2022. "Insights into desiccant-based internally-cooled dehumidification using porous sorbents: From a modeling viewpoint," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 311(C).
    2. Vivekh, P. & Islam, M.R. & Chua, K.J., 2020. "Experimental performance evaluation of a composite superabsorbent polymer coated heat exchanger based air dehumidification system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    3. Zhang, Yu & Wang, Weining & Zheng, Xu & Cai, Jinliang, 2024. "Recent progress on composite desiccants for adsorption-based dehumidification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 302(C).
    4. Wang, Cong & Yang, Bianfeng & Ji, Xu & Zhang, Ren & Wu, Hailong, 2022. "Study on activated carbon/silica gel/lithium chloride composite desiccant for solid dehumidification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C).
    5. Karmakar, Avishek & Prabakaran, Vivekh & Zhao, Dan & Chua, Kian Jon, 2020. "A review of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as energy-efficient desiccants for adsorption driven heat-transformation applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    6. Chen, K. & Zheng, X. & Wang, S.N., 2022. "Investigation on activated carbon-sodium polyacrylate coated aluminum sheets for desiccant coated heat exchanger," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    7. Venegas, Tomas & Qu, Ming & Nawaz, Kashif & Wang, Lingshi, 2021. "Critical review and future prospects for desiccant coated heat exchangers: Materials, design, and manufacturing," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    8. Liu, M. & Prabakaran, V. & Bui, T. & Cheng, G.G. & Pang, W., 2023. "Three-dimensional numerical analysis of fin-tube desiccant-coated heat exchanger for air dehumidification in tropics," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 331(C).
    9. Chen, W.D. & Vivekh, P. & Liu, M.Z. & Kumja, M. & Chua, K.J., 2021. "Energy improvement and performance prediction of desiccant coated dehumidifiers based on dimensional and scaling analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    10. Zheng, Xu & Wan, Tinghao & Zhang, Yu & Ma, Qianling, 2024. "Experimental investigation of a thermo-responsive composite coated heat exchanger for ultra-low grade heat utilization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 293(C).
    11. Ge, Lurong & Ge, Tianshu & Wang, Ruzhu, 2022. "Facile synthesis of Al-based MOF and its applications in desiccant coated heat exchangers," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    12. Vivekh, P. & Kumja, M. & Bui, D.T. & Chua, K.J., 2018. "Recent developments in solid desiccant coated heat exchangers – A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 229(C), pages 778-803.
    13. Valarezo, Andres S. & Sun, X.Y. & Ge, T.S. & Dai, Y.J. & Wang, R.Z., 2019. "Experimental investigation on performance of a novel composite desiccant coated heat exchanger in summer and winter seasons," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 506-518.
    14. Zheng, Xu & Zhang, Yu & Wan, Tinghao & Chen, Kang, 2023. "Experimental study on the performance of a novel superabsorbent polymer and activated carbon composite coated heat exchangers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    15. Zu, Kan & Qin, Menghao & Cui, Shuqing, 2020. "Progress and potential of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as novel desiccants for built environment control: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    16. Vivekh, P. & Bui, D.T. & Wong, Y. & Kumja, M. & Chua, K.J., 2019. "Performance evaluation of PVA-LiCl coated heat exchangers for next-generation of energy-efficient dehumidification," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 733-750.
    17. Ge, Lurong & Feng, Yaohui & Wu, Jiarong & Wang, Ruzhu & Ge, Tianshu, 2024. "Performance evaluation of MIL-101(Cr) based desiccant-coated heat exchangers for efficient dehumidification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 289(C).
    18. Zhang, Qunli & Li, Yanxin & Zhang, Qiuyue & Ma, Fengge & Lü, Xiaoshu, 2024. "Application of deep dehumidification technology in low-humidity industry: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    19. Chai, Shaowei & Chen, Erjian & Xie, Mingxi & Zhao, Yao & Dai, Yanjun, 2022. "Experimental study of dehumidification performance and solar thermal energy enhancement properties on a dehumidification system using desiccant coated heat exchanger," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    20. Shamim, Jubair A. & Hsu, Wei-Lun & Paul, Soumyadeep & Yu, Lili & Daiguji, Hirofumi, 2021. "A review of solid desiccant dehumidifiers: Current status and near-term development goals in the context of net zero energy buildings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:275:y:2020:i:c:s0306261920309405. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.