Direct Contact Heat and Mass Exchanger for Heating, Cooling, Humidification, and Dehumidification

A direct-contact heat and mass exchanger (DCHME) has many advantages over a traditional surface-type heat exchanger, including a high heat transfer coefficient, simplicity of design, and low OPEX and CAPEX. DCHME has a capability to exchange of both heat and mass between the two fluids in the same process. Hence, DCHMEs are widely used in numerous applications in various industries, including the air conditioning industry for cooling and dehumidification and heating and humidification. Based on their structure, DCHME can be categorized into two groups; two fluids direct contact (TFDC) exchanger and two direct contacts with one non-contact fluid (TDCONF) exchanger. This study developed a mathematical model for these two types of exchangers by using a discretized volume with distributed lumped-parameters method instead of using the conventional log mean enthalpy difference (LMHD) and NTU-effectiveness method. Thus, this model can reflect both heat and mass transfer behavior in every spatially distributed physical system. The objective of this study is to develop a mathematical model to be used as a tool for designing DCHME and to be applied as a sub-function of the model predictive control system to predict the effectiveness and dependent parameters of DCHME under the different load conditions and its various input parameters.