Experimental and simulation studies on heat pump integration two stage desalination and cooling system

Abstract

The coefficient of performance (COP) of a heat pump is higher than a refrigerator. The simultaneous utilisation of cooling effects and heat rejection improves the COP better than heat pump operation. In the proposed system, the cooling and heating functions of heat pump have been utilised for the simultaneous benefits of freshwater production and cooling. The Humidification-dehumidification and vapour compression refrigeration (HDH-VCR) cycle has been developed and studied for the production of freshwater, cooling, and hot water. The integrated refrigerator and heat pump's cooling and heating energies were used for freshwater production, cooling, and self-heat generation for system operation. As the heat pump rejects more quantities of heat than the requirements, the additional hot water is a byproduct of the process. The plant also has the ability to generate cool air or hot air depending on the season. Theoretical work (post design analysis) and experimental analysis have been conducted with the aim of theoretical model development and maximising the energy performance ratio (EPR) of the system. The developed coefficients can be used by the researchers in the further developments without repeating the experiment. The identified process variations are evaporator temperature, hot water supply temperature, atmospheric air temperature, and atmospheric air relative humidity (RH). The system resulted in 5 LPH of freshwater, 6.5 kW of cooling, and 3.8 EPR at airflow of 1000 m³/h.