DESICCANT SOLAR AIR-CONDITIONING IN TROPICAL CLIMATES .1. DYNAMIC EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL-STUDIES OF SILICA-GEL AND ACTIVATED ALUMINA

This paper presents a dynamic study of moist air dehumidification in v iew of its use in an air conditioning process by evaporative cooling i n tropical climates. A special device has been built to study dehumidi fication of tropical-like inlet air, through a fixed compact bed of si licagel and activated alumina. The compact desiccant storage is compos ed of two parallel beds to reduce the pressure drop. A good agreement is obtained for our experiment, and the computed amount of cycled wate r from the numerical model in the adiabatic process. This analytical m odel is used to simulate a complete air conditioning open cycle operat ing with hot and humid air.