Exergoeconomy of a desiccant enhanced evaporative cooling system using exergetic incremental function

In this paper, exergoeconomic analysis of a rotary liquid desiccant dehumidifier (wheel) operating in conjunction with an evaporative cooler has been carried out to analyze the exergetic manufacturing cost of the system. The proposed system has advantage of simultaneous process of dehumidification and regeneration. After analyzing the energy and exergy performance of the system, an exergoeconomy model has been developed using exergy incremental functions to optimize exergetic cost of the system. The main objective of exergoeconomy model is to minimize the investment and operating costs by selecting the optimum values of operating parameters. The effect of two basic parameters which define the required input energy i.e. regeneration temperature and ratio of regeneration to process air flow rate, have been taken into account for exergoeconomy optimization of the system. The results showed that for the certain conditions, the operating costs may be reduced but will have high capital cost. Therefore, the optimal values for all parameters should be selected considering both operating as well as capital costs.