Single-stage and double-stage photovoltaic driven regeneration for liquid desiccant cooling system

Liquid desiccant cooling system (LDCS) is a novel air-conditioning system with good energy saving potential. However, the present LDCS has a poor performance, mainly because the conventional thermal regeneration method wastes too much energy during the regeneration process. To improve that, photovoltaic-electrodialysis (PV-ED) regeneration method is introduced: it has a higher performance by using solar photovoltaic panels to drive an electrodialysis regeneration process. To further explore the PV-ED method, both single-stage and double-stage photovoltaic-electrodialysis regeneration systems are presented in this paper. Analysis is made on these two systems and some influential factors are investigated. It reveals that the concentration difference between the desiccant solution before and after regeneration has a strong impact on system performance. Moreover, comparison is conducted between the single-stage and the double-stage systems, the results show that the double-stage system is more energy-efficient and it can save more than 50% energy under optimized working conditions. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.