• Energy Research

The current paper presents the design and energy performance analysis of a propane-based reversible Dual Source/Sink Heat Pump (DSHP). DSHPs offer an alternative to conventional water to water and air to water heat pumps, leveraging the strengths of both technologies in an efficient manner. The developed prototype incorporates an innovative Dual Source/Sink Heat eXchanger (DSHX), enabling the unit operating in various modes, including space heating, space cooling, and domestic hot water production using brine, air or both simultaneously as a source/sink. The DSHX serves as as both a condenser or an evaporator, directly rejecting or absorbing heat from air and/or brine. By eliminating secondary loops and defrost cycles, the DSHX minimizes energy losses. The main novelty of this work lies in the DSHX that integrates external units typically duplicated in DSHPs into a single component, eliminating the need for split refrigerant flow rates, thus avoiding maldistribution, refrigerant charge increase and draining valves. A steady state experimental campaign was conducted in a climatic chamber to characterize the DSHP prototype and validate the DSHX performance models. Heating capacity up to 11.2 kW and COP values up to 4.7 were achieved at nominal compressor speed by supplying hot water at 35 °C with an ambient temperature of 7 °C. Similarly, when producing cold water at 7 °C, cooling capacity and EER reached 9.8 kW and 3.6, respectively, at nominal compressor speed using air as heat sink at 35 °C. The effects of various operating parameters on the overall coefficient of performance and heat duty in both heating and cooling modes, considering air or brine as heat source/sink are analyzed in detail. Results demonstrate enhancements of approximately 15 % in capacity and efficiency compared to earlier work. Moreover, four deterministic models were created in order to predict the behaviour of the DSHX and validated against experimental results, reaching deviation values below 15 %. The authors would like to thank the support of the TRI-HP project (https://www.tri-hp.eu/project) funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Project No. 814888.

Hybrid Liquid Desiccant systems (HLDS) combine the liquid desiccant technology for dehumidification of air with conventional compression cycle technology for cooling. They are an alternative to conventional compression cooling systems, being more efficient and offering the possibility of independently control temperature and humidity. In this paper the design and operation of a HLDS is presented, for the air conditioning of a high latent load application with high ambient humidity levels. An analysis of the daily evolution of the performance of the system under different environmental conditions has been included. The innovative demonstration unit placed in Taiwan, in continuous operation since November 2015, achieved Energy efficiency Ratios (EER) up to 4.6. This work has been supported by the European Nanocool project (ref n. 314701) co-founded by the EC under FP7-2012-NMP-ENV-ENERGY-ICT-EeB. https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/id/publication/12611

Abstract Wettability has a key impact on the performance of LiBr-H2O horizontal-tube falling film absorbers working under typical operating conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to study the influence of the wettability properties on the film hydrodynamics and wetted area. This work analyses the influence of the contact angle (0–120°) on the transient film hydrodynamics and the wetted area in the droplet and jet flow modes (7 ≤ Re ≤ 53). The comparison between two-dimensional and three-dimensional models evidences that three-dimensional models are needed for incomplete wetting conditions. The influence of the contact angle on both the film hydrodynamics and wetted area is demonstrated using 3D unsteady CFD model. Furthermore, the results indicate that each Reynolds number has a maximum contact angle to wet the whole tube steadily. When the value of the contact angle is lower than this maximum value, the contact angle has not influence on the wetting ratio. In contrast, at higher values, the wetting ratio decreases as the contact angle increases.

The subject of the transport phenomena has a pivotal role in the performance of aqueous lithium bromide falling film absorbers. Although the thermodiffusion phenomenon appears inside the solution, very little is known about its influence on the mass transport. This study numerically analyses the influence of the thermal mass transfer mechanism on a vertical plate-type heat exchanger for different Reynolds numbers ([Formula: see text]). Results indicate that, in general, the mass transfer caused by the temperature gradient enhances the total absorption because of the negative Soret coefficient of the salt solution. This improvement is found to be higher at higher Reynolds numbers. Furthermore, the concentration and temperature profiles and, therefore, the absorption change significantly along the flow length. Overall, this analysis assists the understanding of the role of the thermal mechanism in this type of absorbers and it demonstrates that it should be considered in future studies.