Kalpana
Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, India
G. Fekadu
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Wollega University, Ethiopia
M. Sajesh
Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, Roorkee, Roorkee-247667, India
Sudhakar Subudhi
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, IIT Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667,
India
The present experimental study deals with liquid desiccant air conditioning assisted by solar energy. The dehumidifier is made of tubes of stainless steel of 316L with aluminium fins placed on the outside surface of the tubes. The marquise shaped slotted flat plate solar collector is used for regeneration. In this experiment, calcium chloride solution with 35 % concentration is used as a liquid desiccant. The flow rate of air is fixed at 10CFM and the solution flow rate used for the study are 14 lpm, 16 lpm, 18 lpm and 20 lpm. In this study, the effect of inlet operating parameters like; inlet solution flow rate, inlet RH (%), regeneration and solution temperature, on dehumidification rate and effectiveness are investigated. The study shows that when the solution flow rate increases, the dehumidification rate increases for a fixed Ta,in and RH%. It is seen that the increase in RH(%) from 68.88% to 92.8% for the flow rate of 20 lpm and fixed inlet air temperature, increases dehumidification rate from 0.02696 g/sec. to 0.06465 g/sec.