NREL comes up with a better air conditioner
NREL has come up with a new type of air conditioner that cools and dries the air. Living in the South during the summer is a lot like living in Hades, hot and humid. NREL’s new air conditioner will not only alleviate both conditions but will also lower your electric bill.
The new air conditioner called the Desiccant-Enhanced eVaporative air conditioner (DEVap), uses old principles to make an energy efficient effective product. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has combined evaporative air cooling with drying agents and filters to create a better method of cooling the air and reducing pollution. Best of all this new air conditioner could save you 50 to 90 percent on your electric bills.
NREL mechanical engineer Eric Kozubal is the co-inventor of the DEVap. He describes how they developed the air conditioner.
"We’d been working with membranes, evaporative coolers and desiccants. We saw an opportunity to combine them into a single device for a product with unique capabilities."
Regular air conditioning uses a refrigeration method of cooling the air. They also use either chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) both of which create green house gas.
A pound of CFC or HCFC in refrigerant-based A/Cs contributes as much to global warming as 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. A typical residential size A/C has as much as 13 pounds of these refrigerants. The release of this much refrigerant is equivalent to burning more than 1,300 gallons of gasoline . . .
Instead the DEVap uses “syrupy liquids — highly concentrated aqueous salt solutions of lithium chloride or calcium chloride.” These dessicants remove the moisture from the air reducing humidity. Next thin hydrophobic membranes where the moisture beads up. The membranes control the water in the “cooling core”. The cooling happens in one step in a fraction of a second.
"We bring the water and liquid desiccant into DEVap’s heat-mass exchanger core," Kozubal said. "The desiccant and evaporative cooling effect work together to create cold-dry air."
Current air conditioning requires a lot of energy to run the refrigeration unit in the air conditioner. Since the DEVap replaces that refrigeration cycle with an absorption cycle that is thermally activated much less energy is used. You can run the DEVap using solar energy or natural gas as well as electricity. Whatever source of energy you use, you will either have a low bill or no bill.
NREL has patented the DEVap concept and will now work on making the system smaller and simpler. The engineers will also be perfecting the heat transfer making DEVap more “cost effective.” But they will not be manufacturing them.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory will never manufacture these new air conditioners but it would like to license the technology. NREL wants to work with manufacturers so that DEVap air conditioners will actually make it to market.
Ah, the thought of inexpensive cool dry air on a hot muggy day sounds like heaven. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to buy this until they get the kinks out and bring it to market. Soon, please, Soon!
Related posts:
