Solar-Driven Potassium Formate Liquid Desiccant Dehumidification System with Thermal Energy Storage

Abstract

With a conscious effort of shifting toward cleaner sources of energy to reduce the carbon footprint and emissions around the world, the current technological advancements for the production of energy are primarily focused on harnessing the renewable sources of energy for efficient use. Solar photovoltaic energy is one of the most abundant and promising sources of renewable energy with a lot of scope and potential for development in generation of power for useful work. Since the efficiencies of solar cells are very low, coupling the solar panel system with a thermal extraction cycle for supplying energy to various applications can improve the overall efficiency of the combined system. One such application is the usage of the thermal energy obtained from the photovoltaic (PV) panels as input to the liquid desiccant air-conditioning system primarily for dehumidification of air. Considered as the alternative to traditional vapor absorption/compression air conditioning systems, desiccant air conditioning systems are becoming increasingly popular for cooling and dehumidification of air because of their higher efficiencies and ability to use low-grade sources of energy to produce the required output. A comprehensive analysis of the working characteristics of the liquid desiccant dehumidification system using potassium formate as the liquid desiccant solution has been performed in this study. The liquid desiccant dehumidification system has been mathematically modeled using MATLAB R2018b

primarily to study the amount of dehumidification, the system is able to produce using the energy supplied to it from the photovoltaic module. Different configurations of the system have been modeled to identify the best possible system for maximum performance. The motive of implementing the proposed system is to improve the performance and efficiency of the renewable energy systems and to enhance the utilization of eco-friendly technologies in everyday life. As The future heads toward a greener and cleaner path, focusing on harnessing eco-friendly technologies with the maximum efficiency, can be regarded as the need of the hour. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.