Mark J. Khinkis

Integrated Desiccant–Indirect Evaporative Cooling System Utilizing the Maisotsenko Cycle

Desiccant Indirect Evaporative Cooling is a good alternative to conventional vapor compression systems to meet new economic, environmental, and regulatory challenges. The advanced desiccant cooling systems through the Maisotsenko Cycle (M-Cycle) discussed here have the potential to phase out the use of CFC refrigerants, reduce energy-operating costs and peak power demands, meet new ventilation rate standards and improve indoor air quality.The M-Cycle combines the thermodynamic processes of heat exchange and evaporative cooling in a unique indirect evaporative cooler resulting in product temperatures that approach the dew point temperature (not the wet bulb temperature). This cycle utilizes the enthalpy difference between air, at its dew point temperature, and air saturated at a higher temperature. This enthalpy difference or potential energy is used to reject the heat from the higher temperature air stream [1–3].The first time the M-Cycle technology was proven was in 1984. Currently Coolerado Corporation produces several air conditioners (commercial, residential, solar and hybrid) relying only on the M-Cycle. The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) tested Coolerado’s air conditioners documenting that they are up to 80% more efficient than traditional systems [10]. The M-Cycle has been investigated extensively in different countries for unusual applications because it can be used for many applications for producing cooling, power system performance improvement, distilled water production, heat recovery processes and others [see Refs. 4–10, 13–18]. This paper describes the basic M-Cycle and advances by coupling the M-Cycle with a desiccant system.Copyright

Advanced Cooling Tower Concept for Commercial and Industrial Applications

For the majority of cooling towers installed, of which there are greater than half a million installed in the U.S., tower design uses direct evaporative cooler technology where an ideally enthalpy-neutral process cools the process water stream to a temperature above the ambient wet bulb. This ambient wet bulb temperature is the limiting factor for the process cooling. As such the energy-water connection is clear, these cooling towers are direct consumers of treated water and their cooling performance is intimately tied to the process efficiency.Copyright

Integrated Steam/Organic Rankine Cycle (ISORC) for Waste Heat Recovery in Distributed Generation and Combined Heat and Power Production

Energy efficiency improvement and waste heat utilization in power generation and energy intensive industrial applications are in the main focus of the researchers and engineers nowadays. A great deal of experience was gained by the industrial leaders such as ORMAT, Siemens, Caterpillar, Turboden, and others. However, the commercially and semi-commercially available systems for waste heat utilization have certain restrictions that limit the utilization cycle efficiency to approximately 18%. The paper presents an innovative concept of waste heat utilization system that allows reaching the utilization cycle efficiency up to 28–30% employing low-boiling media such as butane, propane, pentane and others. Applying such a concept to Distributed Generation systems the overall energy efficiency could be boost up to 58–60% and further up to 90% in case of CHP production.Copyright