Experimental study about spraying the condensate water on the performance of open refrigerated display cabinet

Abstract

Nowadays, the demand for open refrigerated display cabinets (ORDCs) is on the rise, accompanied by a growing urgency to address energy-related challenges. While the recycling of condensate water has been identified as a potential avenue to enhance ORDC performance, the subsequent management of this recycled condensate has garnered insufficient attention. To address this critical gap, this study delves into the influence of spraying condensate water and introduces the critical flowrate - the maximum flowrate at which all condensate water is entirely evaporated. The impact of some key factors, such as the flowrate of condensate water, the nozzle number, the spraying distance, and the ambient temperature and humidity, are experimentally discussed. Results show that, increasing the flowrate of condensate water enhances the ORDC performance until the optimal flowrate is achieved. The critical flowrate is inherently lower than the optimal flowrate. Increasing the nozzle number, spraying distance, and decreasing ambient temperature and humidity, could improve the ORDC performance, and the corresponding critical flowrate could be also increased. The critical flowrate is almost the same for different conditions. For the studied ORDC, the critical flowrate is 32.9 ml/min under which the coefficient of performance (COP), thermal entrainment factor (TEF), and the reduction of compressor power consumption (Q) could be improved by 51.1 %, 33.3 %, and 260.7 W, respectively, compared to that without spraying the condensate water.