Comparative study on internally heated and adiabatic regenerators in liquid desiccant air conditioning system

Liquid desiccant regeneration has important effect on performance of a liquid desiccant air conditioning system. Compared with conventional packed regenerator, internally heated regenerator is proposed to achieve better regeneration performance. This study emphasized on both regeneration rate and regeneration thermal efficiency to evaluate the performance of both regenerators. A validated heat and mass transfer model was used to analyse and compare the performance of internally heated and adiabatic regenerators. The results indicated that internally heated regenerator not only could increase the regenerate rate, but also could exhibit higher energy utilization efficiency. Different from adiabatic regenerator, internally heated regenerator can provide comparable regeneration efficiency and regeneration rate at low desiccant flow rate, so it should be a good alternative to avoid carryover of desiccant droplets. Higher air flow rate would result in a deduction of regeneration thermal efficiency although achieving higher regeneration rate. Suitable flow rate of the air should be considered carefully in liquid desiccant regeneration. The internally regenerator could have considerable prospect in liquid desiccant air conditioning application.