IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i5p1921-d327911.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Energy Performance Evaluation of a Desiccant Air Handling System to Maximize Solar Thermal Energy Use in a Hot and Humid Climate

Author

Listed:
  • Makiko Ukai

    (Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan)

  • Masaya Okumiya

    (Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan)

  • Hideki Tanaka

    (Campus Planning & Environment Management Office, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan)

Abstract

A desiccant air handling unit is one of the major types of dehumidification handling systems and requires hot water or hot air to regenerate sorption materials. If solar thermal energy is used as the heat source for regeneration, in general, a backup electrical heater, backup boiler, or combined heat and power (CHP) is installed in order to maintain a stable hot water supply. In this study, effective control is proposed for a desiccant air handling system that uses solar thermal energy (flexible control), and its energy performance is compared to that of a traditional control (the fixed control) through a system simulation. The diurnal behavior shows that the system with a fixed control without a backup boiler cannot process the latent load properly (28 GJ of unprocessed latent load for July and August). On the other hand, the system with a flexible control without a backup boiler is able to process required latent heat load. Based on the fact that the fixed control needs a backup boiler to process the latent load, the system with a fixed control with a backup boiler is considered for the energy performance comparison. The simulation results show that the primary energy-based coefficient of performance (hereafter, COP) of the system with a flexible control without a backup boiler reaches 1.56. On the other hand, the primary energy-based COP of the system with a fixed control with a backup boiler reaches only 1.43. This proves that the flexible control contributes to the higher energy performance of the system and maximizes the use of solar thermal energy more than the fixed control.

Suggested Citation

  • Makiko Ukai & Masaya Okumiya & Hideki Tanaka, 2020. "Energy Performance Evaluation of a Desiccant Air Handling System to Maximize Solar Thermal Energy Use in a Hot and Humid Climate," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-18, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:5:p:1921-:d:327911
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/1921/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/1921/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ge, T.S. & Dai, Y.J. & Wang, R.Z., 2014. "Review on solar powered rotary desiccant wheel cooling system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 476-497.
    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. Elena Belyanovskaya & Miroslav Rimár & Roman D. Lytovchenko & Miroslav Variny & Kostyantyn M. Sukhyy & Oleksandr O. Yeromin & Mikhailo P. Sykhyy & Elena M. Prokopenko & Irina V. Sukha & Mikhailo V. Gu, 2020. "Performance of an Adsorptive Heat-Moisture Regenerator Based on Silica Gel–Sodium Sulphate," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-15, July.

    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. Speerforck, Arne & Schmitz, Gerhard, 2016. "Experimental investigation of a ground-coupled desiccant assisted air conditioning system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 575-585.
    2. 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).
    3. 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).
    4. Yang, Tianyu & Ge, Tianshu, 2024. "Performance study of a heat pump fresh air unit based on desiccant coated heat exchangers under different operation strategies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 296(C).
    5. Peter Niemann & Finn Richter & Arne Speerforck & Gerhard Schmitz, 2019. "Desiccant-Assisted Air Conditioning System Relying on Solar and Geothermal Energy during Summer and Winter," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-20, August.
    6. Zu, Kan & Qin, Menghao, 2022. "Optimization of the hygrothermal performance of novel metal-organic framework (MOF) based humidity pump: A CFD approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    7. Zhou, Yuekuan & Zheng, Siqian & Hensen, Jan L.M., 2024. "Machine learning-based digital district heating/cooling with renewable integrations and advanced low-carbon transition," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    8. Speerforck, Arne & Ling, Jiazhen & Aute, Vikrant & Radermacher, Reinhard & Schmitz, Gerhard, 2017. "Modeling and simulation of a desiccant assisted solar and geothermal air conditioning system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 2321-2336.
    9. Guo, Jinyi & Bilbao, Jose I. & Sproul, Alistair B., 2020. "A novel solar cooling cycle – A ground coupled PV/T desiccant cooling (GPVTDC) system with low heat source temperatures," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1273-1284.
    10. Zeng, Cheng & Liu, Shuli & Shukla, Ashish, 2017. "A review on the air-to-air heat and mass exchanger technologies for building applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 753-774.
    11. O’Connor, Dominic & Calautit, John Kaiser S. & Hughes, Ben Richard, 2016. "A review of heat recovery technology for passive ventilation applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 1481-1493.
    12. Shahvari, Saba Zakeri & Clark, Jordan D., 2023. "Approaching theoretical maximum energy performance for desiccant dehumidification using staged and optimized metal-organic frameworks," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 331(C).
    13. Wu, X.N. & Ge, T.S. & Dai, Y.J. & Wang, R.Z., 2018. "Review on substrate of solid desiccant dehumidification system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 3236-3249.
    14. Chen, Liu & Tan, Yikun, 2020. "The performance of a desiccant wheel air conditioning system with high-temperature chilled water from natural cold source," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 2142-2157.
    15. Narayanan, Shankar & Kim, Hyunho & Umans, Ari & Yang, Sungwoo & Li, Xiansen & Schiffres, Scott N. & Rao, Sameer R. & McKay, Ian S. & Rios Perez, Carlos A. & Hidrovo, Carlos H. & Wang, Evelyn N., 2017. "A thermophysical battery for storage-based climate control," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 31-43.
    16. Guo, Jinyi & Lin, Simao & Bilbao, Jose I. & White, Stephen D. & Sproul, Alistair B., 2017. "A review of photovoltaic thermal (PV/T) heat utilisation with low temperature desiccant cooling and dehumidification," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 1-14.
    17. Peci, F. & Comino, F. & Ruiz de Adana, M., 2018. "Performance of an unglazed transpire collector in the facade of a building for heating and cooling in combination with a desiccant evaporative cooler," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 460-471.
    18. She, Xiaohui & Cong, Lin & Nie, Binjian & Leng, Guanghui & Peng, Hao & Chen, Yi & Zhang, Xiaosong & Wen, Tao & Yang, Hongxing & Luo, Yimo, 2018. "Energy-efficient and -economic technologies for air conditioning with vapor compression refrigeration: A comprehensive review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 157-186.
    19. Faizan Shabir & Muhammad Sultan & Yasir Niaz & Muhammad Usman & Sobhy M. Ibrahim & Yongqiang Feng & Bukke Kiran Naik & Abdul Nasir & Imran Ali, 2020. "Steady-State Investigation of Carbon-Based Adsorbent–Adsorbate Pairs for Heat Transformation Application," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-15, August.
    20. Aristov, Yu.I. & Gordeeva, L.G., 2022. "Combining the psychrometric chart of humid air with water adsorption isosters: Analysis of the Ventireg process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 239(PC).

    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:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:5:p:1921-:d:327911. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.