Assessment of liquid desiccant dehumidification aided vapor-compression refrigeration system based on thermo-economic approach

This work presents the analysis of a modified liquid desiccant dehumidification incorporated vapour compression refrigeration system based on thermo-economic approach. The thermal model of the proposed system is developed and optimized by considering the co-efficient of performance and the total annual cost of the system as objectives. To focus on the liquid desiccant dehumidification subsystem, seven design variables including thermodynamic and geometric parameters are selected accordingly. The multi-objective optimization results are obtained in the form of Pareto solutions. The effect of dehumidifier height and desiccant to air mass flow rate on the optimized performance of the system is investigated. Further, the effect of design variables on the performance of the system is also examined. The results show that 51.3% of the total cooling load is handled by the desiccant dehumidifier alone. This significant sharing of heat duty by addition of liquid desiccant dehumidification to conventional vapour compression refrigeration system justifies this hybridization for humid and hotter climates. Further investigation at an optimal solution point shows that the co-efficient of performance of the hybrid system is improved up to 68.4% compared to co-efficient of performance of standalone vapour compression refrigeration system for handling the same cooling load. Also, the payback duration of the hybrid system comes out to be 1.54 years.