The Implementation of Humidification-Dehumidification Desalination system for COP enhancement in cold storage unit

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to improve the COP of the Cold Storage system by integrating it with a HDH desalination system which produces water as a by-product. So, a conventional Cold Storage system is integrated to a novel HDH desalination system equipped with a mixed flow heat exchanger and their performance is evaluated experimentally. Water-cooled de-superheater and the mixed flow heat exchanger have been connected to the existing Cold Storage unit via refrigerant pipelines. A novel mixed flow heat exchanger with two types of air turbulators namely V – baffles and rectangular baffles were used to recover the waste heat. They have been tested experimentally to increase the heat transfer and condensation in the dehumidifier section. Air and water flow rates are varied from 682 kg/h to 2059 kg/h and from 617 kg/h to 1112 kg/h respectively. The cold storage unit is tested with five different loads of 220 W, 440 W, 660 W, 880 W and 1100 W. When air and water mass flow rates are 2059 kg/h and 617 kg/h respectively, V - baffles produced a maximum COP of 4.76 which is an increase of 18.69 % from conventional unit for a load of 220 W. At an air flow rate of 682 kg/s, the highest humidifier efficiency of 91.6 %, and maximum gain output ratio of 0.367 and recovery ratio of 0.077 are obtained.