Investigation of liquid desiccant regenerator with fixed-plate heat recovery system

In this paper, performance analysis has been conducted to evaluate the regenerator with heat recovery in Liquid Desiccant Dehumidification System (LDDS) under different air mass flow rate. The waste heat of the exhausted regenerating air is recovered by a fixed-plate heat exchanger (FPHE). A hybrid model has been proposed for the heat recovery process and combined with the regenerating heat and mass transfer hybrid model, the heat recovery performance of FPHE and its effects on the regenerating performance have been evaluated. The comparison of the experimental and numerical results show that the numerical computation is accurate and effective for prediction, control and optimization of regenerator with heat recovery. The largest relative error is only 10.03%. With heat recovery, the regenerating performance is improved with high regenerating rate, effectiveness and thermal efficiency. FPHE recovers 16-19% of the waste energy and compared with regenerator without heat recovery, its employment in regenerator contributes to 14-18% energy saving.