Abstract :

Compact Heat Exchangers Employing Minichannel Flow Passages, With Hydraulic Diameters In The Range Of 0.2–3 Mm, Provide Elevated Surface-area-to-volume Ratios, Enhanced Heat-transfer Coefficients And Reduced Refrigerant Inventories Compared With Conventional Finned-tube Coils. The Present Work Investigates The Suitability Of A Finned-tube Mini-channel Coil As The Internally-cooled Air–liquiddesiccant (LD) Contacting Device Of A Hybrid Liquid Desiccant Air-conditioning (LDAC) Unit. An Instrumented Experimental Facility Integrating A Vapour-compression Chiller, A Centrifugal-pump-driven LD Spraying Loop And An Acrylicenclosed Coil Was Constructed And Tested Under Two Modes— Chilled-water-only And Chilled-water With Sprayed Aqueous LD—at Coil-inlet Chilled-water Temperatures Of 17 °C And 22 °C. The Water, Air And Desiccant Mass Flow Rates Were Maintained At 200 L/h, 0.155 Kg/s And 86.71 Kg/h, Respectively. A Peak Total Cooling Rate Of 2.5 KW Was Obtained With Chilled Water Alone At 17 °C, Whereas The Introduction Of The LD Spray Raised Sensible Cooling Marginally (from 1.4 To 1.6 KW At 17 °C) But Reduced Latent Cooling From 1.1 KW To 0.3 KW And Total Cooling From 2.5 KW To 1.9 KW. The Performance Penalty Is Attributed To The Additional Air-side Thermal Resistance Imposed By The Desiccant Film And To The Short Gas–liquid Contact Time At The Prevailing Face Velocity. The Results Delineate The Operating Regime In Which Mini-channel Coils Can Function Effectively As Internally-cooled LD Contactors And Identify The LD-to-air Mass-flow Ratio And Desiccant Pre-cooling As The Dominant Levers For Further Improvement.

Published:

02-5-2026

Issue:

Vol. 26 No. 5 (2026)

Page Nos:

74-79

Section:

Articles

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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