Performance and application of combined system of liquid desiccant and R718 centrifugal heat pump

The air-conditioning system for buildings and facilities is required that the room temperature and the humidity are kept in a predetermined range for comfortable air-conditioning. For achieving the above only by a heat pump, the room condition should be heated till the preset temperature after cooling till the temperature from which the request humidity is obtained, and this operation is inefficient. To overcome such inefficiency, separation of latent heat and sensible heat has been proposed. This is a two-step process in which temperature and humidity are adjusted separately in two steps by combining desiccant dehumidifier and heat pump. Theoretically, the system is known to be effective in reducing energy consumption, but in practical application, this technology can be further improved. In this research, we combined the liquid desiccant equipment which can perform low temperature regeneration and R718 centrifugal heat pump suitable for high efficiency for this application. Based on this concept, we have developed a highly efficient air-conditioning system by improving element equipment and optimizing operating conditions. The performance of this system is reported here.