Experiments on a vapor compression air conditioner with liquid desiccants for efficient dehumidification

• Tested hybrid vapor-compression + liquid desiccant system at 26 conditions. • Validated numerical model with experiments. • Most measured moisture removal efficiencies (MRE) are between 2.8 to 6.1 kg/kWh. • Two tests with supply dewpoint of −2.1 °C had MRE of 1.9. • Modeling shows adding the liquid desiccant lowers electric power use by 25 %. Buildings require air conditioning systems that not only cool and dehumidify supply air but also provide sufficient ventilation to ensure indoor air quality and occupant comfort. However, standard recirculation systems—which introduce about a 10 % to 20 % fraction of outdoor air—often fail to deliver air that is precisely cooled and dry, particularly because 80–90 % of the ventilation cooling load is latent. Mixing humid ventilation air with recirculated indoor air increases the energy and costs required to condition the air to comfortable levels. Dedicated outdoor air systems (DOASs) are designed to handle this latent dominated ventilation load and thus need to have efficient humidity removal. Many cooling cycles can perform this task. Here we describe a liquid desiccant DOAS, which combines a vapor compression cycle and a liquid desiccant absorber and desorber pair. We present its performance at 26 operating conditions and a thermodynamic model which can accurately predict the moisture removal efficiency. The model’s performance predictions have a mean percentage error of 2.5 % and a coefficient of variation of the root mean square error of 7.5 %. We also compare the performance of this vapor-compression-coupled liquid desiccant system with a standard vapor compression system with the same components but no liquid desiccant. For the 26 conditions tested in this study, this comparison shows that adding liquid desiccants lowers the required evaporator cooling load by 21 %, allows for 25 % lower compressor volumetric capacity, and 25 % lower electricity use. Future work will leverage this model to quantify the reduction in annual electricity use across different climates, including the need for a standard vapor compression system to reheat the air during some of the year.