An Innovative Efficient Combine Cycle Air Conditioner

Kurzfassung

An Israeli company developed an efficient air conditioner, based on innovative hygroscopic brine heat exchanging technology. Advantages over conventional air conditioners include energy conservation (25-50% electricity saving), air ventilation, dehumidification and sterilisation and cost effectiveness. The company is looking for a partner that deals with manufacturing, distribution and integration of medium to big size air conditioning systems, and that is capable to adopt the new technology.

Details

The Combined Cycle Air Conditioner - CCAC, an efficient air conditioner, was designed to provide more economical and more comfortable air conditioning in summer, winter and for high humidity climate. It is being operated successfully in many industrial and commercial facilities.

Since air conditioning and space heating of residential and commercial buildings dominates the energy consumption during the summer and winter (or all year round in tropical climate), the CCAC substantially contributes to the reduction of fuel combustion, air pollution and greenhouse effect.

The basic CCAC combines two small and advanced air brine heat exchangers and the standard elements of a conventional air conditioner (compressor, evaporator and condenser).

The hot and humid air is blown into air brine heat exchanger, where it releases heat and vapour into the cold brine (sensible and latent heat). The warmer brine flows to the evaporator, where the heat is released by evaporating the refrigerant. This heat is transferred by the compressor operation to the condenser, in which heat of refrigerant condensation is being transferred to the brine and thereafter to the ambient air.

As a result, the thermal gradient, and therefore the pressure gradient, across the compressor are reduced, leading to a substantial reduction in energy consumption.

The CCAC saves 25% of electricity consumption when the latent heat load is small (conditioned climate). It saves more than 50% of electricity when the latent heat load exceeds the sensible heat load (tropical climate).

Besides the cost saving, the CCAC provides much more comfortable conditions for people (ideal combination of humidity and temperature) and sterilises the air.

The CCAC can serve as a CCHP – Combine Cycle Heat Pump for heating during winter, saving around 40% of heating cost. While a conventional air conditioner stops heating in outside temperature of around 6C, the CCHP operates in temperature of around 10C below zero (it is possible to operate down to 20C below zero by replacing the basic compressor).

Additional application is the AFAC – Fresh Air Conditioner, which is added on existing air conditioning systems. The AFAC reduces and maintains the humidity in the air-conditioned space at an ideal level (around 50%), thus saves air conditioner power that is spent on air vapour condensation. The AFAC is highly effective in tropical climate.

The basic CCAC provides 6-7 tons of cooling capacity with a COP 3-4 (coefficient of performance), while the higher COP and capacity is achieved in high ambient temperature and humidity (tropical climate). The COP of a conventional air conditioner is 2.7 in average

Innovative Aspects:
The essence of the innovation is harnessing air hygroscopic-brine direct-contact heat-exchanging and conventional air conditioning technologies together. This innovation contributes to a saving of 25-50% of the energy consumption of medium to big air conditioning systems.

Besides efficient cooling air conditioning, the space heating application breaks the ambient temperature limit and pushes it down to 10-20°C below zero. Thus, it contributes to a saving of around 40% of heating energy during winter.

The environment is one of the major beneficiaries of the CCAC, which reduces fuel combustion. The high efficiency air conditioning and space heating and the high cost-effectiveness are the main advantages of the proposed technology.

Other advantages are the provision of most comfortable conditions (ideal combination of temperature and relative humidity) and air sterilisation.

With comparison to conventional air conditioning solutions, the CCAC is capable of full-performance operation in extreme climate conditions, such as cooling in high temperature and humidity (tropical) and heating in temperatures below zero C.

The performance of the CCAC shows superiority over any other conventional solution in terms of efficiency, energy conservation, operation in extreme climate conditions, provision of ideal air conditioning and air sterilisation.