High efficiency desiccant systems for air conditioning applications.

Suitable combinations of desiccant and evaporative cooling systems permit air processes alternative to the traditional ones for air conditioning applications. But owing to the high costs of desiccant wheels, we need very strong energy savings in order to demonstrate an economy validity. These savings can be possible today by the last generation of desiccant wheels where the most part of the regeneration heat can be supplied by heat recovery from chillers. In this paper the performance of metal-silicate wheels are investigated and presented in the case of their applications in European typical climate conditions. The results seem very promising.