Surajitr Pramuang. Solar Collector for Regenerating Silica Gel in Desiccant Air-Conditioning Systems. Master's Degree(Energy Technology). King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi. : King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, 2005.
Solar Collector for Regenerating Silica Gel in Desiccant Air-Conditioning Systems
Abstract:
Diffuse solar radiation in the tropical climate of Thailand is high but has a large
variation. Since the regeneration of the silica gel in desiccant air-conditioning systems by means of hot air needs a high temperature, solar collectors for heating the air in Thailand should concentrate the diffuse radiation as well as the direct radiation. This can be done with a compound parabolic concentration (CPC), which also has the advantage of achieving an acceptable concentration ratio without tracking the sun. High temperatures and energy conversion efficiencies can be obtained because its heat losses can be made less than in a flat plate solar collector. A CPC collector with flat plate absorber has been constructed and tested by the transient test method of Chungpaibulapatana and Exell using air as working fluid. Four collector parameters were determined in the varying weather conditions. The effective heat capacity of the collector representing the energy absorbed in the solar collector per unit area was found to be 1.62 kJ/m2K. The heat loss of the collector was found to be almost linear with the first order and second order heat loss coefficients of 8.51 W/m2K and 0.06 W/m2K2 respectively. The optical efficiency of 0.70 determined by direct measurement of the optical properties of the material of fabrication agreed with the experimental value of 0.67. The collector was used as a solar air heater with aperture area 1.44 m2 producing hot air for regenerating 8.50 kg of dry silica gel. The experiments compared the regeneration rate and the regeneration efficiency of the silica gel bed in 1 and 2 beds at different air flow rates in the range 0.003-0.03 kg/s. The regeneration rate and the regeneration efficiency were
greatly affected by the solar radiation, and were only slightly affected by the number of silica gel beds. The regeneration rates from a mathematical calculation and the measurements were compared, and the results agree except on days with highly variable weather.