Performance analysis of cooling tower using desiccant

Cooling towers are one of the biggest heat and mass transfer devices that are in widespread use. In this work, the cooling tower model has been fabricated and silica gel mesh (SGM) column is installed at the inlet of the cooling tower. Experiments have been performed for three different modes namely with 0, 1 and 2 silica gel mesh with the subcases of varying air velocity and inlet water temperature. Experimental results demonstrated that the addition of a desiccant column (SGM) at inlet improves the range and effectiveness of the cooling tower. At higher inlet temperature (80 degrees C and 4.3 m/s air velocity) the range of 2 SGM cooling tower is 2 degrees C greater than without SGM cooling tower. This study also analyzes the effect of SGM column on the cooling water flow rate of the condenser of the thermal power plant and it has been found that required mass flow rate of SGM cooling tower is less than the normal cooling tower at any operating conditions. The minimum value of cooling water flow rate (32.05 kg/s) is achieved when inlet water temperature and velocity are 50 degrees C and 3 m/s, respectively. Further, the maximum reduction in cooling water flow rate is 18.22% using two SGM column at 4 m/s velocity and 50 degrees C inlet temperature. Hence, this modification helps improve the cooling capacity and reduce the water consumption of the cooling tower.