Performance analysis of a liquid absorption dehumidifier driven by jacket-cooling water of a diesel engine in a CCHP system

This article addresses the tough problem of effectively utilizing the low-grade residual heat of jacket-cooling water (JCW) from an internal combustion engine in combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) systems. An experimental platform was set up for this purpose, in which the JCW was used as a heat source to drive a LiCl liquid absorption dehumidifier (LAD). The thermodynamic model of the LAD in a CCHP system was established to correlate heat- and mass-transfer of the LAD with the output power of the engine, and the performance of the system was analyzed. An experiment and modelling study showed that increasing the output power of the engine resulted in increases in both the JCW temperature and the LAD dehumidifying capacity, leading to lower relative humidity of the outlet air. A thermodynamic performance comparison of the CCHP system with and without a LAD was performed, and the thermodynamic performance of the CCHP system with the LAD was superior to a conventional CCHP system without it.