Air conditioner

Details Air conditioner Air conditioner

2002-10-17

2004-01-13

Doerrler, William C. (Department: 3744)

Refrigeration

Atmosphere and sorbent contacting type

C062S094000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06675601

ABSTRACT:

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
This application is related to Japanese Patent Application No. 2001-320804 as filed on Oct. 18, 2001, whose priority is claimed under 35 USC § 119, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioner, and more particularly to a novel air conditioner combined a desiccant air conditioner with a refrigerating device for cooling a room by a normal refrigerating cycle.
2. Description of Related Art
A typical desiccant air conditioner
100
that is conventionally well-known has a construction shown in FIG.
7
. In
FIG. 7
, solid line arrows represent airflow of outdoor air (hereinafter referred to as supply air) drawn from the outside of a house or building into the room, while broken line arrows represent airflow of indoor air (hereinafter referred to as exhaust air) exhausted from the room to the outside. Moreover, the desiccant air conditioner mentioned above is described in, for example, Akio KODAMA, et al, “Desiccant Air Conditioning Process”, Journal of JSES (JAPAN SOLAR ENERGY SOCIETY), Vol. 27, No. 2, pages 2-11, JSES, Mar. 31, 2001; Tsutomu HIROSE, et al, “Desiccant Air Conditioning System Using Solar Energy”, Journal of JSES (JAPAN SOLAR ENERGY SOCIETY), Vol. 27, No. 2, pages 19-26, JSES, Mar. 31, 2001; and WeiLi Jin, “Implementation Example of High Performance Desiccant Air Conditioning System”, Heating Piping and Air Conditioning, No. 10, pages 1-5, Japan Industrial Publishing Co., Ltd., October 2001.
As shown in
FIG. 7
, the desiccant air conditioner
100
is provided with an air supply passage
3
for directing the outdoor air into a room
2
and an air exhaust passage
4
for exhausting the indoor air. The air supply passage
3
and the air exhaust passage
4
are arranged so as to be adjacent to each other.
Arranged successively from the outside to the inside of the room
2
in the air supply passage
3
are a supply fan
31
, one half
51
of a rotary dehumidifier
5
, one half
61
of a rotary sensible heat exchanger
6
and a humidifier
7
, while arranged successively in the air exhaust passage
4
are an exhaust fan
41
, the other half
52
of the rotary dehumidifier
5
, a regenerative heater
101
, the other half
62
of the rotary sensible heat exchanger
6
and a humidifier
8
.
The rotary dehumidifier
5
is arranged so as to extend over the air supply passage
3
and the air exhaust passage
4
which are adjacent to each other, as shown in FIG.
7
. Consequently, the one half
51
thereof is positioned in the air supply passage
3
, while the other half
52
is positioned in the air exhaust passage
4
. This rotary dehumidifier
5
is a rotary rotor having a honeycomb airflow path that is made of a sheet-like material obtained by impregnating glass fiber as base material with silica gel. Thus, the rotary dehumidifier
5
is constructed so as to contact the passing air with the sheet-like material efficiently. The rotary dehumidifier
5
adsorbs water vapors in the passing supply air for performing a dehumidification at the one half
51
in the air supply passage
3
, while dehumidifies an adsorbent by the passing heated high-temperature exhaust air at the other half
52
in the air exhaust passage
4
for recycling the adsorbent.
The rotary sensible heat exchanger
6
is a rotary rotor having a honeycomb airflow path formed using an aluminum plate. The rotary sensible heat exchanger
6
is constructed such that sensible heat exchange occurs, via the aluminum plate forming the honeycomb airflow path, between the supply air passing through the one half
61
in the air supply passage
3
and the exhaust air passing through the other half
62
in the air exhaust passage
4
.
The regenerative heater
101
heats the exhaust air with hot water as a heat source, the hot water being supplied from a hot water tank
102
that stores hot water heated by a hot water boiler or the like. The regenerative heater
101
further heats the exhaust air already heated by the other half
62
of the rotary sensible heat exchanger
6
. Numeral
103
designates a hot water circulating pump.
Further, the humidifiers
7
and
8
spray water such as tap water or the like for humidifying the passing supply air or exhaust air.
The operation of the desiccant air conditioner
100
having the above-mentioned construction will be explained hereinbelow with reference to an air chart shown in FIG.
8
. Air states of A
1
to A
4
and B
1
to B
5
in
FIG. 8
respectively represent the air states at the positions marked with A
1
to A
4
and B
1
to B
5
in FIG.
7
. Also in
FIG. 8
, each solid line represents the change in the state of the supply air introduced into the room
2
from the outside, while each broken line represents the change in the state of the exhaust air exhausted from the room
2
into the outside.
The outdoor air (supply air) A
1
in the outside (for example, dry bulb temperature of 35° C., relative humidity &phgr; of 40%) is transported to the rotary dehumidifier
5
by the supply fan
31
. This supply air is dehumidified by the one half
51
of the rotary dehumidifier
5
. At this time, heat of adsorption is generated at the one half
51
. As a result, this supply air is dehumidified at the one half
51
of the rotary dehumidifier
5
without being accompanied by an energy change, thereby reaching the point A
2
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 60° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 5%).
The dehumidified supply air A
2
is cooled in the one half
61
of the rotary sensible heat exchanger
6
to the point A
3
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 20° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 40%) by a cold heat of the exhaust air flowing into the other half
62
with the state of the point B
2
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 19.5° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 100%). The air at the point A
3
is humidified by the humidifier
7
to become a cool air at the point A
4
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 12° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 100%), and then supplied into the room
2
. It is to be noted that, between these points A3 and A
4
, the dry bulb temperature of the supply air is lowered by latent heat cooling brought by the humidification, but there is no energy change.
On the other hand, the exhaust air B
1
(for example, dry bulb temperature of 27° C., relative humidity &phgr; of 50%) is cooled by latent heat of vaporization of water in the humidifier
8
to reach the point B
2
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 19.5° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 100%). The exhaust air at the point B
2
is heated in the other half
62
of the rotary sensible heat exchanger
6
to the point B
3
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 50° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 12%) by the heat of the supply air flowing into the one half
61
and having state of the point A
3
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 60° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 5%). The exhaust air at the point B
3
is heated to the point B
4
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 80° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 5%) in the regenerative heater
101
. The exhaust air at the point B
4
heats the adsorbent for dehumidifying the same in the other half
52
of the rotary dehumidifier
5
, while the exhaust air itself is humidified to reach the point B
5
(for example, dry bulb temperature of about 42° C., relative humidity &phgr; of about 40%), and then discharged to the outside.
Since the conventional desiccant air conditioner
100
has the construction as described above, the heat quantity Qip (i.e., input heat quantity (kcal)) consumed for cooling equals to the heat quantity supplied to the regenerative heater
101
. This heat quantity Qip is obtained by the following equation:
Qip
=(flow rate of supplied and exhausted air)×(
Hb
5
−Hb
3
)
wherein Hb
5
represents an enthalpy (kcal/kg) of the exhaust air at the point B
5
and Hb
3
rep

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