Tri-generation of air conditioning, refrigeration and potable water by a novel absorption refrigeration system equipped with membrane dehumidifier

Abstract Air conditioning and refrigeration systems account for almost half of the energy consumption in buildings of the developed countries. The liquid sorption system is a promising alternative to the conventional vapor compression system which is energy inefficient. It is classified into open (dehumidification) and closed (absorption) systems which are used to control the humidity of air and temperature of the cooling stream respectively. The present study proposes a new hybrid system that integrates the absorption refrigeration system with a membrane dehumidifier for air conditioning and refrigeration. The proposed system also produces potable water from ambient humidity. It is viable only with the membrane dehumidifier since its microporous membrane avoids the direct contact between the air and solution streams but allows heat and mass transfer between them. As a result, the vacuum pressure of the proposed system remains unaltered. Moreover, the corrosion in the proposed (due to traces of air) and air handling systems (due to traces of solution) is avoided. In the present study, the performance of the proposed system is compared with the conventional absorption refrigeration system and also investigated under the influence of the design and operating parameters, and ambient conditions. Performance analysis found that the proposed system produces the air with 2.6 kW cooling capacity and 0.00102 kg/s potable water from the given evaporator load of 10 kW for the hot and humid climatic conditions.