Performance of an Absorber With Hydrophobic Membrane Contactor at Aqueous Solution-Water Vapor Interface

In this study, analytical investigation at off-design conditions on performance of a plates-and-frames absorber with hydrophobic microporous membrane contactor at aqueous solution-water vapor interface are carried out. The absorber is a component of a single-effect lithium bromide-water absorption chiller with a hot water thermally driven generator and water-cooled absorber and condenser. Integrating the absorber model with the chiller model is used to evaluate the absorber performance at off-design conditions corresponding to different inlet both driving hot water and cooling water (coolant) temperatures. For the same cooling capacity of the chiller and referring to design point values, the results indicate that, increasing the inlet driving hot water temperature results in an increase in the required absorber size, consequently, a decrease in the absorber performance. While, decreasing the cooling water (coolant) inlet temperature leads to slightly decreases in the required absorber size, consequently, an increase in the absorber performance.