Thermodynamic balancing of the regeneration process in a novel liquid desiccant cooling/desalination system

This paper focuses on thermodynamic balancing of the regeneration process in a hybrid liquid desiccant cooling/desalination system. The thermal balancing technique is investigated by adding a single extraction between the system regenerator and condenser. This technique is considered as a potential method to reduce energy consumption and increase the hybrid system performance, dramatically. The mathematical procedure to model the proposed system using enthalpy pinch is outlined to study the effect of extraction on the hybrid system performance. The hybrid system, with a single extraction and without extraction (zero extraction), is analyzed in terms of the normalized entropy generation, local enthalpy losses, the coefficient of performance, and proper extraction location. The results show that at enthalpy pinch of 20 kJ per kg of dry air, single extraction system performance is 85.7% better than zero extraction. In addition, the single extraction produces 103.2 kg of fresh water per hour as a by-product compared to 94.2 kg per hour for the zero extraction system.