Energy efficient portable air conditioner with a dehumidification system

• Main Author: Addien Nur Iman Abu Bakar
• Other Authors: Ooi Kim Tiow
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering::Energy conservation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/64380
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Most portable air-conditioners have an in-built dehumidifier, either as a separate function or it dehumidifies the ambient air before the ambient air is cooled. However, there is a lack of credible study on how dehumidifying the air before cooling it can affect the energy efficiency of the portable air-conditioner. By measuring the power consumption, with and without a dehumidification system, of a portable air-conditioner, the project team managed to determine its effectiveness and propose improvement methods. Temperature and relative humidity measured at specific locations in the experimental setup provided the necessary data to resolve the enthalpy, humidity ratio, cooling load and coefficient of performance of the open system. An analysis of the results from the thermodynamic experiments concluded that dehumidifying the air before it is being cooled neither increase nor decrease the power consumption of a portable air-conditioner. What it does was to reduce the overall cooling load by 35%, which was attributed to a lowered air flowrate of 36.4%. The dehumidifier of dehumidification system caused redistribution of cooling load of dry air (increased by 7.3%) and water vapour (decreased by 69.8%). The difference in enthalpy between A/C inlet and A/C outlet remained constant throughout the process, thus did not affect the overall cooling load. As a result of the characteristics of the A/C components, the A/C outlet had a constant absolute humidity, and the coefficient of performance reduced (by 35.3%) as total cooling load decreased.